Russell H. Conwell, Founder of the Institutional Church in America Part 9

Then into this busy crowd wondering what should be done came a little child, and with one simple act cleared the mist from their eyes and pointed the way for them to go.

CHAPTER XIX

HATTIE WIATT'S LEGACY

How a Little Child Started the Building Fund for the Great Baptist Temple.

One Sunday afternoon a little child, Hattie Wiatt, six years old, came to the church building at Berks and Mervine to attend the Sunday School. She was a very little girl and it was a very large Sunday School, but big as it was there was not room to squeeze her in. Other little girls had been turned away that day, and still others, Sundays before. But it was a bitter disappointment to this small child; the little lips trembled, the big tears rolled down her cheeks and the sobs that came were from the heart. The pastor himself told the little one why she could not come in and tried to comfort her. His heart was big enough for her and her trouble if the church was not. He watched the childish figure going so sadly up the street with a heart that was heavy that he must turn away a little child from the house of G.o.d, from the house raised in the name of One who said, "Suffer little children to come unto me."

She did not forget her disappointment as many a child would. It had been too grievous. It hurt too deeply to think that she could not go to that Sunday School, and that other little girls who wanted to go must stay away. With quivering lip she told her mother there wasn't room for her. With a sad little heart she spent the afternoon thinking about it, and when bedtime came and she said her prayers, she prayed with a child's beautiful faith that they would find room for her so that she might go and learn more about Jesus. Perhaps she had heard some word dropped about faith and works. Perhaps the childish mind thought it out for herself. But she arose the next morning with a strong purpose in her childish soul, a purpose so big in faith, so firm in determination, it could put many a strong man's efforts to the blush. "I will save my money," she said to herself, "and build a bigger Sunday School. Then we can all go."

From her childish treasures she hunted out a little red pocketbook and in this she put her pennies, one at a time. What temptations that childish soul struggled with no one may know! How she shut her eyes and steeled her heart to playthings her friends bought, to the allurements of the candy shop window! But nothing turned her from her purpose. Penny by penny the little h.o.a.rd grew. Day after day the dimpled fingers counted it and the bright eyes grew brighter as the sum mounted. That mite cast in by the widow was no purer, greater offering than these pennies so lovingly and heroically saved by this little child.

But there were only a few weeks of this planning, hoping, saving. The little Temple builder fell ill. It was a brief illness and then the grim Reaper knocked at the door of the Wiatt home and the loving, self-sacrificing spirit was born to the Father's House where there are many mansions, where there was no lack of room, for the little heart so eager to learn more of Jesus.

With her dying breath she told her mother of her treasure, told her it was for Grace Baptist Church to build.

In the little red pocketbook was just fifty-seven cents. That was her legacy. With swelling heart, the pastor reverently took it; with misty eyes and broken voice he told his people of the little one's gift.

"And when they heard how G.o.d had blessed them with so great an inheritance, there was silence in the room; the silence of tears and earnest consecration. The corner stone of the Temple was laid."

CHAPTER XX

BUILDING THE TEMPLE

How the Money was Raised. Walking Clubs. Jug Breaking. The Purchase of the Lot. Laying the Corner Stone.

Thus was their path pointed out to them and they walked steadily forward in it from that day.

Plans were made for raising money. The work went forward with a vim, for ever before each worker was the thought of that tiny girl, the precious pennies saved one by one by childish self-denial. The child's faith was equaled by theirs. It was a case of "Come unto me on the water." They were poor. n.o.body could give much. But n.o.body hesitated.

It was not only a question of giving, even small sums. What was given must be saved in some way. Few could give outright and not feel it.

Incomes for the most part just covered living expenses, and expenses must be cut down, if incomes were to be stretched to build a church.

So these practical people put their wits to work to see how money could be saved. Walking clubs were organized, not for vigorous cross country tramps in a search for pleasure and health, but with an earnest determination to save carfare for the building fund. Tired men with muscles aching from a hard day's work, women weary with a long day behind the counter or typewriter, cheerfully trudged home and saved the nickels. Women economized in dress, men who smoked gave it up. Vacations in the summer were dropped. Even the boys and girls saved their pennies as little Hattie Wiatt had done, and the money poured into the treasury in astonishing amounts, considering how small was each individual gift. All these sacrifices helped to endear the place to those who wove their hopes and prayers about it.

A fair was given in a large hall in the centre of the city which brought to the notice of many strangers the vigorous work the church was doing and netted nearly five thousand dollars toward the building fund. It was a fair that went with a vim, planned on business lines, conducted in a practical, sensible fashion.

Another effort that brought splendid results was the giving out of little earthen jugs in the early summer to be brought to the harvest home in September with their garnerings. It was a joyous evening when the jugs were brought in. A supper was given, and while the church members enjoyed themselves at the tables, the committee sat on the platform, broke the jugs, counted the money and announced the amount.

The sum total brought joyous smiles to the treasurer's face.

Innumerable entertainments were held in the church and at homes of the church members. Suppers were given in Fairmount Park during the summer. Every worthy plan for raising money that clever brains could devise and willing hands accomplish was used to swell the building fund.

Thus the work went ahead, and in September, 1886, the lot on which The Temple now stands at Broad and Berks was purchased at a cost of twenty-five thousand dollars. Thus encouraged with tangible results, the work for the building fund was pushed, if possible, with even greater vigor. Ground was broken for The Temple March 27, 1889. The corner stone was laid July 13, 1890, and on the first of March, 1891, the house was occupied for worship.

The only large amount received toward the building fund was a gift of ten thousand dollars on condition that the church be not dedicated until it was free of debt. In a legal sense, calling a building by the name of the congregation worshipping in it is a dedication, and so the building, instead of being called The Grace Baptist Church, was called the Baptist Temple, a name which will probably cling to it while one stone stands upon another.

Raising money and erecting a building did not stop the spiritual work of the church. Rather it increased it. People heard of the church through the fairs and various other efforts to raise money, came to the service, perhaps out of curiosity at first, became interested, their hearts were touched and they joined. Never did its spiritual light burn more brightly than in these days of hard work and self-denial. The membership steadily rose, and when Grace Church moved into its new temple of worship, more than twelve hundred members answered the muster roll.

CHAPTER XXI

OCCUPYING THE TEMPLE

The First Sunday. The Building Itself--Its Seating Capacity, Furnishing and Lighting. The Lower Temple and its Various Rooms and Halls. Services Heard by Telephone at the Samaritan Hospital.

That was a great day--the first Sunday in the new Temple. Six years of labor and love had gone to its building and now they possessed the land.

"During the opening exercises over nine thousand people were present at each service," said the "Philadelphia Press" writing of the event.

The throng overflowed into the Lower Temple; into the old church building. The whole neighborhood was full of the joyful members of Grace Baptist Church. The very air seemed to thrill with the spirit of thanksgiving abroad that day. All that Sabbath from sunrise until close to midnight members thronged the building with prayers of thankfulness and praise welling up from glad hearts.

Writing from London several years later, Mr. Conwell voiced in words what had been in his mind when the church was planned:

"I heard a sermon which helped me greatly. It was delivered by an old preacher, and the subject was, 'This G.o.d is our G.o.d,' He described the attributes of G.o.d in glory, knowledge, wisdom and love, and compared Him to the G.o.ds the heathen do worship. He then pressed upon us the message that this glorious G.o.d is the Christian's G.o.d, and with Him we cannot want. It did me so much good, and made me long so much for more of G.o.d in all my feelings, actions, and influence. The seats were hard, and the tack of the pew hard and high, the church dusty and neglected; yet, in spite of all the discomforts, I was blessed. I was sorry for the preacher who had to preach against all those discomforts, and did not wonder at the thin congregation. Oh! it is all wrong to make it so unnecessarily hard to listen to the gospel.

They ought for Jesus' sake tear out the old benches and put in comfortable chairs. There was an air about the service of perfunctoriness and lack of object, which made the service indefinite and aimless. This is a common fault. We lack an object and do not aim at anything special in our services. That, too, is all wrong. Each hymn, each chapter read, each anthem, each prayer, and each sermon should have a special and appropriate purpose. May the Lord help me, after my return, to profit by this day's lesson."

No hard benches, no air of cold dreariness marks The Temple. The exterior is beautiful and graceful in design, the interior cheery and homelike in furnishing.

The building is of hewn stone, with a frontage on Broad Street of one hundred and seven feet, a depth on Berks Street of one hundred and fifty feet, a height of ninety feet. On the front is a beautiful half rose window of rich stained gla.s.s, and on the Berks Street side a number of smaller memorial windows, each depicting some beautiful Biblical scene or thought. Above the rose window on the front is a small iron balcony on which on special occasions, and at midnight on Christmas, New Year's Eve and Easter, the church orchestra and choir play sacred melodies and sing hymns, filling the midnight hour with melody and delighting thousands who gather to hear it.

The auditorium of The Temple has the largest seating capacity among Protestant church edifices in the United States. Its original seating capacity according to the architect's plans, was forty-two hundred opera chairs. But to secure greater comfort and safety only thirty-one hundred and thirty-five chairs were used.

Under the auditorium and below the level of the street is the part of the building called the Lower Temple. Here are Sunday School rooms, with a seating capacity of two thousand. The Sunday School room and lecture room of the Lower Temple is forty-eight by one hundred and six feet in dimensions. It also has many beautiful stained-gla.s.s windows.

On the platform is a cabinet organ and a grand piano. In the rear of the lecture room is a dining-room, forty-five by forty-six feet, with a capacity for seating five hundred people. Folding tables and hundreds of chairs are stowed away in the store rooms when not in use in the great dining-room. Opening out of this room are the rooms of the Board of Trustees, the parlors and reading-rooms of the Young Men's a.s.sociation and the Young Women's a.s.sociation, and the kitchen, carving-room and cloak-room. Through the kitchen is a pa.s.sageway to the engine and boiler rooms. In pantries and cupboards is an outfit of china and table cutlery sufficient to set a table for five hundred persons. The kitchen is fully equipped, with two large ranges, hot-water cylinders, sinks and drainage tanks. In the annex beyond the kitchen, a separate building contains the boilers and engine room and the electric-light plants.

The steam-heating of the building is supplied by four one hundred horse-power boilers. In the engine room are two one hundred and thirty-five horse-power engines, directly connected with dynamos having a capacity of twenty-five hundred lights, which are controlled by a switchboard in this room. The electrician is on duty every day, giving his entire time to the management of this plant. The building is also supplied with gas. Directly behind the pulpit is a small closet containing a friction wheel, by means of which, should the electric light fail for any reason, every gas jet in The Temple can be lighted from dome to bas.e.m.e.nt.

For cleaning the church, a vacuum plant has been installed, which sucks out every particle of dust and dirt. It does the work quickly and thoroughly, in fact, so thoroughly it is impossible even with the hardest beating to raise any dust on the covered chairs after they have been cleaned by this process. Such crowds throng The Temple that some quick, thorough method of cleaning it became imperative.

Back of the auditorium on the street floor are the business offices of the church, Mr. Conwell's study, the office of his secretary and of the a.s.sociate pastor. All are practically and cheerfully furnished, fitted with desks, filing cabinets, telephones, speaking tubes, everything to carry forward the business of the church in a time-saving, businesslike way.

The acoustics of the great auditorium are perfect. There is no building on this continent with an equal capacity which enables the preacher to speak and the hearers to listen with such perfect comfort.

The weakest voice is carried to the farthest auditor. Lecturers who have tested the acoustic properties of halls in every state in the Union speak with praise and pleasure of The Temple, which makes the delivery of an oration to three thousand people as easy, so far as vocal effort is concerned, as a parlor conversation.

Telephonic communication has recently been installed between the auditorium and the Samaritan Hospital. Patients in their beds can hear the sermons preached from The Temple pulpit and the music of the Sunday services.

Compared with other a.s.sembly rooms in this country, the auditorium of The Temple is a model. It seats thirty-one hundred and thirty-five persons. The American Academy of Music, Philadelphia, seats twenty-nine hundred; the Academy of Music, Brooklyn, twenty-four hundred and thirty-three; Academy in New York, twenty-four hundred and thirty-three; the Grand Opera House, Cincinnati, twenty-two hundred and fifty; and the Music Hall, Boston, twenty-five hundred and eighty-five.

But greater than the building is the spirit that pervades it. The moment one enters the vast auditorium with its crimson chairs, its cheery carpet, its softly tinted walls, one feels at home. Light filters in through rich windows, in memory of some member gone before, some cla.s.s or organization. Back of the pulpit stands the organ, its rich pipes rising almost to the roof. Everywhere is rich, subdued coloring, not ostentatious, but cheery, homelike.