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CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 
 
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CONVERSION OF A 
 HIGH PRIEST INTO A 
 CHRISTIAN WORKER 
 
 Edited and Presented by 
 REV. M. GOLDEN 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 1912 
 
My own loving father, who did sow the seed of a brave Chris- 
 tianity in my young heart, while only eight years of age, calling 
 me by his death-bed, on my knees, with his right hand resting 
 upon my head, in his last words to me, saying: 
 
 "My boy, I leave you; God will be your Father, and Jesus 
 His Son your Saviour; keep away from unholy associates, and 
 heed not imlawful advice, but work for righteousness and help 
 those that are in need; and we shall meet again." And his spirit 
 went into eternity; to which destination I direct all my efforts 
 in life. 
 
 This Book is dedicated by a grateful son. 
 
 Rev. Meletios Golden 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Farewell -17 
 
 36 
 49 
 57 
 66 
 
 II. Arrival 
 
 III. First Day in New York 
 
 IV. High Priest 
 V. Philosophy vs. Christianity . 
 
 VI. God's Providence 76 
 
 VII. New York to California 92 
 
 VIII. Honorable Submission . . ... 104 
 
 IX. Practical Effects of Practical Truth . . 114 
 
 X. Greek-American-Christian-Association . . 133 
 
 XI. Conclusion 151 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Fannliouse ......... Frontispiece 
 
 Rev. M. Golden in Street Attire as High Priest ... 36 
 
 The World's Wonder, Acropolis of Athens, Greece. . . 52 
 
 H. R. H. Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strath- 
 earn, K. G., etc 68 
 
 Rev. M. Golden, the High Priest in Church Ceremonial 
 
 Attire 84 
 
 Rev. M. Golden, Captain of the Salvation Army . . . 100 
 
 Rev. M. Golden, the founder of the Greek-Amerikan-Chris- 
 
 tian-Association 126 
 
 Greek Peasant Woman 132 
 
Conversion of a High Priest into a 
 Practical Christian Worker 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 Edited and 'Presented by 
 Rev. MELETIOS GOLDEN 
 
 Founder of the Greek-Amerikan-Christian-Association. 
 
 HIGH PRIEST OF THE GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH. 
 
 Grand Representative of the St. Stephen's Monastery, 
 Mt. Athos, Turkey. 
 
 Archimandrides of the Virgin Mary's Monastery, Salamis and 
 Athens, Greece. 
 
 Lieutenant, Officer, in the Royal Gendarmery of Greece. 
 
 Grand Chaplain and Orator of the Supreme Council of the A. A. 
 Scottish Rite, Greece. 
 
 Captain of the Salvation Army, U. S. A. 
 
 Member of the Massachusetts Consistory S. P. R. S., Thirty-second 
 Degree, Boston, Mass. 
 
 Evangelist to the Greeks in the United States, etc., etc. 
 
 New York. 
 1912. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In placing this second edition in the hands of my 
 readers I most gratefully acknowledge the splendid 
 assistEince of my subscribers, and the kindness with 
 which this book has been received by the General 
 Public, who made it possible for me to accomplish 
 my intended purpose, ever since I left home, that I 
 should give, to the general public, an account of my 
 conversion into a practical Christian worker, know- 
 ing that there are a great niunber of intelligent 
 minds, among the priests, in the Greek-Russian and 
 Roman Catholic churches, who would make good 
 soldiers of Jesus Christ, and some of them might de- 
 velop into heroes of Truth and Righteousness, if 
 they could only deny themselves of the luxuries and 
 lofty life attached to their priesthood. And this prob- 
 lem of selfishness is an absolute barrier not only to 
 their own Salvation, but to many a soul, who might 
 have been saved from sin, and be converted to God, 
 and usefulness, but for the Priest. 
 
 The solution of the problem was the clue which 
 aided me to escape from the labyrinth of doubt; and 
 now, standing upon the rock of unshaken faith, I 
 offer the clue that guided me to others. 
 
 A work of this kind is called for by the spirit of 
 the age. Although the signs of the times are said to 
 
xiv PREFACE 
 
 be propitious, yet there are constant developments of 
 undisciplined and unsanctified minds both in Europe 
 and America, which furnish matter of regret to the 
 philanthropist and the Christian; and though there 
 are great controversies — agoing on at present; in 
 relation to the man's spiritual interests, central point 
 of all this heated contest has been the "Cross of 
 Christ:" yet the most obnoxious obstacle in the way 
 of progress as to the realization of "God's Kingdom 
 on earth" it is, and from all quarters the same ex- 
 clamation uttered, the priest. 
 
 Men and women entrusted with responsibilities of 
 raising children in the Christ-like way, for the future 
 development of this great country, will find valuable 
 facts in this volume, which I have endeavored to 
 write, in order to meet the exigencies among, not 
 only certain people, but among many well-bred and 
 well-cultured priests. 
 
 In criticising this work, the intelligent reader is 
 respectfully requested to take into accoimt the pecu- 
 liar circumstances under which this book is written. 
 
 I was only six years old — ^in the English language 
 — many miles away from any literary assistance, and 
 fifty miles from the Boston Public Library, where I 
 could derive many testimonies and opinions of im- 
 disputable authorities to strengthen my religious 
 opinions and actions, which are tested in the most 
 practical way by all conditions and under all circum- 
 stances, from the ostentatious pomp of a high priest 
 to a loving, lowly worker in the slums of Chicago. 
 
 The place, where this book is written, is a farm 
 
PREFACE XV 
 
 situated in the picturesque county of Worcester, and 
 it might rightfully have attributed to the effect of the 
 inspiring natural surroundings in this farm that I was 
 enabled to master my views in framing them accord- 
 ing to the linguistic requirements of the American 
 reader, using the every day language for the his- 
 torical part of my subject; and maintaining the more 
 classical expression for the men with the tendencies 
 to argue, just to make a show of their higher knowl- 
 edge, thus trying to excuse themselves for not sub- 
 mitting all their powers to the Will of God. 
 
 It has been said, all misery comes to the human 
 race mainly from two causes; firstly, through mis- 
 conduct: and secondly, through misfortune: there- 
 fore; since there is the self-evident truth, in the 
 axiom, that, when the cause is diagnosed, the remedy 
 is near at hand, let us work unitedly to remove the 
 cause of all misery, be it, in the Greek people, or 
 Jewish, or Gentiles, and by the light of the Gospel's 
 truth, let us put forth all our efforts, while here on 
 earth, in establishing happiness and good will to all 
 men. 
 
 Rev. Meletios Golden. 
 
 North Rutland, Mass., 1910. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 Farewell 
 
 IT was the year 1903, on a very beautiful day, one 
 of those April days, that are well known and ap- 
 preciated by those who have been fortunate enough 
 to travel around the purple bathed Mediterranean 
 coast, that his royal highness, the prince of Greece, 
 Andreas, went abroad to meet his sweetheart, who 
 afterwards became his wife and princess of Greece, 
 if was a confidential royal talk, the betrothal of 
 Prince Andreas, but for the newspaper man, who 
 learns everjrthing, and he can keep a confidential talk 
 as much as Mrs. Green did when she promised to her 
 husband to keep all to herself that confidential talk 
 they had one night, and the. first thing in the morning 
 speaking to Mrs. Jones over the fence she confiden- 
 tially delivered that confidential talk and in the same 
 manner all over fences and telephones, wherever they 
 were procurable, to save the time, the talk went 
 round the town and came back to Mr. Green's ears, 
 and he only blamed himself for being the fool to trust 
 his wife. So, when Prince Andreas, came down to 
 Piraeus, the seaport of Athens, to board on the fash- 
 ionable French S. S. Messengerie-Maritime, he was 
 surprised by the throngs of people that gathered at 
 the pier to greet him "good luck" in his royal love 
 aflFairs, because the Greeks pay more attention to the 
 
i8 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 royal love affairs, than they do in paying their roy- 
 alties to fatten more highness and highnesses than 
 any other Kingdom on the face of the earth. 
 
 The Kingdom of Greece, little more than two 
 millions of people, pay to King George, for his annual 
 allowances six times as much as the ninety millions 
 of people to the President of the United States. And 
 every creature of royal blood, in Greece, draws as 
 high an allowance, as nearer to the throne his or her 
 rights happen to be. Besides, many thousands of 
 acres of the best land in Greece, is granted to the 
 members of the royal family; thus causing the im- 
 mense emigration of all these Greeks, whom you 
 meet in every corner, in the United States, trying to 
 make an honest living, by shining your shoes, or 
 working in the construction of railroads in America 
 and Mexico. 
 
 The Greek, though born and raised among the 
 most beautiful vineyards that made the historical and 
 famous Nectar for the Gods, yet when he leaves his 
 home to go abroad, he takes his last glass^of intoxi- 
 cant, till he settles himself, in a new adopted mother- 
 land, and makes a comfortable home for the queen of 
 his heart, because home life is the ideal of every 
 Greek and he is a model as head of the family, in his 
 moderate means trying to raise children to his gener- 
 ation and give them the best he can afford. Hopeful, 
 that some Socrates or Demosthenes might develop 
 out of his offspring. The Greek has never been identi- 
 fied with any unlawful or criminal movement of the 
 so-called Anarchistic or Socialistic. The Greek at all 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 19 
 
 times and under all circumstances is an example as 
 a law-abiding citizen. 
 
 Greek history is the pride of all the civilized world, 
 and in the opinion of a most distinguished sociologist, 
 the United States is the Greece of this age, and he 
 thinks that it is the irresistible law of gravitation and 
 sympathy that the tide of emigration draws the 
 Greeks from the ancient Greece into this new and 
 glorious Greece. And the writer was very little 
 surprised when told that Boston is the Hub of 
 America, or in the language of the Archaeologist, the 
 Athens of the United States, and there and then he 
 made his resolution , to make his home in Boston, 
 should he ever find the way clear to come to America. 
 The joyful dream of his life has become reality, and 
 for the last six years from his personal observations 
 travding a Uttle more, perhaps, than the average 
 American traveler, from Atlantic Ocean to Pacific 
 Coast, he is privileged to know that the spirit of the 
 Ancient Greece is not only confined in the Hub, 
 but, hospitality and the love of art and beauty pre- 
 vails in the very heart of every true American man 
 and woman, even in the remotest village and hamlet, 
 and he has yet to know the time or the place where 
 he did not feel perfectly at home. Therefore, there 
 is no regret on his part for bidding farewell to the 
 land of the Gods and the city which had been the 
 birthplace of taste, of art and beauty and eloquence. 
 The chosen sanctuary of the Muses. The prototype 
 of all that is graceful and dignified and grand in senti- 
 ment and action. 
 
20 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 History and philosophy, oratory and the elements 
 of mathematical science claim as their birthplace the 
 city of Athens, where, Paul, the greatest apostle of 
 Jesus Christ, uttered his immortal oration to the 
 Athenians, on the Areopagus (Mars Hill). And he, 
 dignified, temperate, high-minded and learned in all 
 wisdom, of his age, Paul, confessed that he was stand- 
 ing in the midst of the highest civilization, both of his 
 own age and of the ages that had elapsed. 
 
 Paul, with his face towards the north having imme- 
 diately behind him the long walls which ran down 
 to the sea, affording protection against a foreign 
 enemy. Near the sea on the one side the harbor of 
 Piraeus, on the other that designated Phalerum, with 
 crowded arsenals, their busy workmen and their gal- 
 lant ships. Not far off in the ocean the Island of 
 Salamis, ennobled forever in history as the spot near 
 which Athenian valour chastised Asiatic pride, and 
 achieved the liberty of Greece. The Apostle turning 
 towards his right hand to catch a view of a small but 
 celebrated hill rising within the city near that on 
 which he stood, called the Pnyx, where standing on 
 a block of bare stone, Demosthenes and other dis- 
 tinguished orators had addressed the assembled 
 people of Athens, swaying that arrogant and fickle 
 democracy, and thereby making Philip of Macedon 
 tremble, or working good or ill for the entire civilized 
 world. Immediately before him looking upon the 
 crowded city, studded in every part with memorials 
 sacred to religion or patriotism, and exhibiting the 
 highest achievements of art. On his left, somewhat 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 21 
 
 beyond the walls, the Academy, with its groves of 
 plane and olive-trees, its retired walks and cooling 
 fountains, its altar to the Muses, its statues of the 
 Graces, its Temple' of Minerva, and its altars to 
 Prometheus, to Love, and Hercules, near which Plato 
 had his country seat, and in the midst of which he had 
 taught as well his followers after him. But the 
 most impressive spectacle laying on his right hand, 
 that small and precipitous hill "The Acropolis" where 
 clustered together monuments of the highest art, and 
 memorials of the national religion, such as no other 
 equal spot of ground has ever borne. The Apostle's 
 eyes, in turning to the right, would fall on the north- 
 west side of the eminence, which was here and all 
 rotmd, covered and protected by a wall, parts of which 
 were so ancient as to be of Cyclopean origin. The 
 western side, which alone gave access to what, from 
 its original destination, may be termed the fort, was, 
 during the administration of Pericles, adorned with 
 a splendid flight of steps, and the beautiful Propylaea, 
 with its five entrances and two flanking temples, con- 
 structed by Mnesicles of Pentelican marble at a cost 
 of 2012 talents, which is the equivalent of about four 
 millions of American dollars. In the time of the 
 Roman emperors there stood before the Propylaea, 
 equestrian statues of Augustus and Agrippa. On the 
 southern wing of the Propylaea was a temple to the 
 Wingless Victory; on the northern, a Pinacotheca, or 
 picture gallery. On the highest part of the platform 
 of the Acropohs, not more than 300 feet from the 
 entrance-buildings just described, stood and yet 
 
22 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 stands, though shattered and mutilated, The Parthe- 
 non, justly celebrated throughout the world, erected 
 of white Pentelican marble, under the direction of 
 Callicrates, Ictinus and Carpion and adorned with 
 the finest sculptures from the hand of Phidias. 
 
 Northward from the Parthenon was the Erech- 
 theum, a compound building which contained the 
 temple of Minerva Polias; the proper Erechtheum, 
 called also the Cecropium, and the Pandroseum. 
 This sanctuary contained the holy olive tree sacred to 
 Minerva, the holy salt-spring, the ancient wooden 
 image of Pallas, etc., and was the scene of the oldest 
 and most venerated ceremonies and recollections of 
 the Athenians. Perhaps, for this reason. King George 
 of Greece, in celebrating his 25th anniversary on the 
 Throne, he gave upon this rock of Acropolis, that 
 remarkable banquet to all crowned visitors, 175 in 
 number from every royal family of Europe. At this 
 memorable event, the writer held the office of "man 
 at arms" on the Acropolis, although he was the 
 youngest officer in the Royal Gendarmery of Greece, 
 at the time. 
 
 Between the Propylaea and the Erechtheum was 
 placed the colossal bronze statue of Pallas-Proma- 
 chos, the work of Phidias, which towered so high 
 above the other buildings, that the plume of her hel- 
 met and the point of her spear were visible on the sea 
 between Sunium and Athens. Moreover, the Acrop- 
 olis was occupied by so great a crowd of statues and 
 monuments, that the account, as found in Pausanias, 
 excites the reader's wonder, and makes it difficult for 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 23 
 
 him to understand how so much could have been 
 crowded into a space which extended from the south- 
 east only 1 150 feet, whilst its greatest breadth did 
 not exceed 500 feet. 
 
 On the hill itself where Paul stood, was the temple 
 of Furies, and in the court house of Areopagus, there 
 was the altar to Athene Areia. 
 
 In all historical probability, Paul, stood exactly 
 on this place when, "to the unknown God" as his text, 
 he delivered the understanding of "The True and 
 Living God," who made the world and all things 
 therein, and he made of one blood all nations of men 
 for to dwell on all the face of the earth. 
 
 The writer, consequently, in bidding farewell to 
 his beloved Athens, he knew that he was going as 
 a brother among members of the safne family of 
 humanity in a land where man is free to worship God, 
 not in hypocrisy and deceit, but in Spirit and in truth. 
 
 On the same beautiful April day that Prince An- 
 dreas was going abroad, the writer went aboard 
 on the same S. S. Messengerie-Maritime, unaware of 
 H. R. H.'s presence there, notified only at the last 
 moment by the agent of the company, Mr. Chris- 
 topher of Piraeus, who was on board himself going to 
 Italy on a business trip. Mr. Christopher, by being a 
 member of the same fellowcraft in which the writer 
 was the Grand Chaplain, he took pains to secure a 
 very comfortable stateroom for his brother Chaplain. 
 
 Now I was following Mr. Christopher and an 
 officer of the S. S. to locate myself in the suite pro- 
 vided for me, and as we were obliged to pass through 
 
24 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 the reception hall there I found myself face to face 
 with the King George, and the following dialogue 
 occurs. 
 
 King — ^Where are you going, Father? 
 
 I — On a recreation trip, Your Majesty. (I should 
 have said, on a reformation trip.) 
 
 King — I hope you will have a bon voyage. 
 
 I — Your Majesty's wish, God grant it to be so, 
 and I pray that His Favour shall crown with joy, all 
 the desires of H. R. H.'s, the Prince, in his journey. 
 
 King — ^With your prayers, Father, I believe H. R. 
 H. will be well successful. 
 
 And with one of his well known diplomatic smiles 
 that contain manifold meanings; King George, bid us 
 farewell, and in a few moments the big whistle blew 
 and a gentle vibration of the boat gave the notice that 
 we were on the move. I went into my cabin and 
 looking through the hole that was doing duty of a 
 round window, I beheld the monument of Themis- 
 tocles passing slowly, and when I could see that no 
 more, I felt something melting in my heart juid over- 
 flowingly coming up into my eyes in the shape of 
 two drops of burning water. I took them on the 
 tips of my fingers and after kissing them with all the 
 tenderness of a loving heart, I sprinkled them into 
 the apeiron, farewell to my loved ones left behind 
 me, while the big S. S. in full steam was now carry- 
 ing me faster and faster into the unknown and un- 
 certain. 
 
 I did not leave my cabin and there took my meals 
 for two reasons; first, H. R. H. expressed the wish 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 25 
 
 ta take his meals at the regular first-class dining 
 table, with all the mortals therein, and I had little 
 desire to meet him anyway; and second because 
 I wanted to be alone to indulge undisturbed in my 
 thoughts and study them and keep notes of them for 
 my future use. 
 
 The history tells us that it took thirty years for 
 the greatest philosopher that was ever bom to give 
 his definite opinion as to the immortality of the soul. 
 And if a philosopher like Socrates, after thirty years 
 of constant study, he knew one thing, that he knew 
 nothing, it is absurd to dare say that we shall ever 
 know more than Socrates did, and in regard to the 
 most perplexed problem of the human soul we can 
 only rejoice in the fact that we are placed in a more 
 advanced position above Socrates, that we can look 
 upon these problems with more light, and that is the 
 light that comes from Galilee. 
 
 Alone as I was in my cabin I thought of Socrates, 
 I thought of Confucius, of Buddha, and in fact I 
 thought of the many ancient and modem leaders of 
 great movements, and of new thoughts, my admira- 
 tion is insistent to everything that is noble and pure 
 in sentiment and praxis, but there is only one leader, 
 whom my spirit admires the best and I worship him 
 with love and devotion, the man who gave his life for 
 me. I knew I was free through his death and I was 
 happy. The Hierarchical church was opposing me 
 unreasonably; my own dearest and nearest relatives 
 did not understand me, their strongest argument 
 being, how could I sacrifice such a high office and 
 
26 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 deny a promising greater future and still be in my 
 right mind? 
 
 Not being satisfied in my own heart, much less 
 convinced in my mind, I made a pilgrimage to Jeru- 
 salem, in order to find out whether jesus was the only 
 Saviour of mankind without the necessity of a priest. 
 It was then and there, while kneeling on my knees 
 upon that rock of Golgotha that came to me with 
 startling force and clearness that I must be a follower 
 of Jesus Christ and not a representative. All men 
 may live on the Christ-like way and be happy, but 
 the man who dares personify himself with the authori- 
 ties belonging only to Jesus, that man must be a 
 faker; "Greater love hath no man than this, that a 
 man lay down his life for his friends" and I knew 
 Jesus was my friend, the only friend left to me, while 
 every other friend had forsaken me. In that little 
 cabin I felt his companionship, and looking at the 
 clock on the dresser I beheld in the mirror a pleasant 
 face smiling at me. The hour was nearly midnight 
 and I retired, singing "He promised never to leave 
 me alone." 
 
 The voyage from Piraeus to Naples is said to be 
 the best and grandest in Mediterranean, and in com- 
 pany of a royal fellow traveller might have been 
 interesting even to the most eccentric Yankee, but to 
 me it was a monotonous event, and the second even- 
 ing while I was walking for some exercise on the 
 deck, H. R. H. came up to me graciously expressing 
 his regrets for not seeing me at the table, and inquir- 
 ing if I was not feeling well, but he soon noticed my 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 27 
 
 laconical way in excusing my absence, and he with- 
 drew, leaving me alone in my admiration of a grand 
 view on a moonlighted nature in the Mediterranean. 
 And the only thought occupying my mind was; how 
 soon could I get to America? For this reason per- 
 haps, I decided to take steamship for New York at 
 Naples, Italy, instead of going to Marseilles, chief 
 seaport of France on the Mediterranean, thus for- 
 feiting my rights on S. S. Messengerie-Maritime, that 
 had been paid from Piraeus to Marseilles. 
 
 Happily, Mr. Christopher was also representing 
 the S. S. Co., of Fabre Line, and the S. S. Germania 
 of the same company was scheduled to depart from 
 the harbor of Naples in a few days. It certainly was 
 a pleasure and an opportunity of which we took 
 advantage to visit the most interesting places in and 
 around Naples, the city of far famous and at the 
 same time notorious, for there the stranger notices, 
 in every step, the beauty of Italian art and the Nea- 
 politan filth combined in the most peculiar texture. 
 
 Making good use of the little time which we had 
 at our disposal, we took the train and went up to see 
 the City in which the Pope entombed himself a living 
 mummy rather than to co-operate with the civilized 
 world in building God's Kingdom on earth. 
 
 In looking over my memorandums I have just dis- 
 covered a description that I kept about the Eternal 
 City. The historical facts therein are supported by 
 undisputable authority. And I think it apropos bene- 
 ficial to my readers, if it will be placed at their hands 
 before the closing of this chapter. 
 
28 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 On the river Tiber, about fifteen miles from its 
 mouth in the plain of what is now called the Cam- 
 pagna, stands the famous capital of the Western 
 World, and the present residence of the Pope, the 
 City of Rome. The surrounding country is not a 
 plain, but a sort of undulating table-land, crossed by 
 hills, while it sinks towards the southwest to the 
 marshes of Maremma, which coast the Mediterra- 
 nean. In ancient geography the country, in the midst 
 of which Rome lay, was termed Latium, which, in the 
 earliest times, comprised within a space of about 
 four geographical square miles the country lying be- 
 tween the Tiber and the Numisius, extending from 
 the Alban Hills to the sea, having for its chief city 
 Laurentum. Here, on the Palatine Hill, was the 
 city of Rome founded by Romulus and Remus, grand- 
 sons of Numitor, and sons of Rhea Sylvia, to whom, 
 as the originators of the city, mythology ascribed a 
 divine parentage. The origin of the term Rome is 
 in dispute. Some derive it from the Greek Romee, 
 "strength," considering that this name was given to 
 the place as been a fortress. Cicero says the name 
 was taken from that of its foimder Romulus. At first 
 the city had three gates, according to a secret usage. 
 Founded on the Palatine Hill, it extended, by de- 
 grees, so as to take in six other hills at the foot of 
 which ran deep valleys that in early times were in 
 part overflowed with water, while the hill-sides were 
 covered with trees. In the course of the many years 
 during which Rome was acquiring to herself the em- 
 pire of the world, the city underwent great, nimierous, 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 29 
 
 and important changes. Under its first kings it must 
 have presented a very different aspect from what it 
 did after it had been beautified by Tarquin. The de- 
 struction of the city by the Gauls caused a thorough 
 alteration in it: nor could the troubled times which 
 ensued have been favourable to its being well re- 
 stored. It was not till riches and artistic skill came 
 into the city on the conquest of Philip of Macedon, 
 and Antiochus of Syria, that there arose in Rome 
 large handsome stone houses. The capture of Cor- 
 inth conduced much to the adorning of the city: 
 many fine specimens of art being transferred from 
 thence to the abode of the conquerors. And so, as 
 the power of Rome extended over the world, and her 
 chief citizens went into the colonies to enrich them- 
 selves, did the masterpieces of Grecian art flow to- 
 wards the capital, together with some of the taste 
 and skill to which they owed their birth. Augustus, 
 however, it was, who did most for embellishing the 
 capital of the world, though there may be some sac-, 
 rifice of truth in the pointed saying, that he found 
 Rome built of brick, and left it marble. Subsequent 
 emperors followed his example, till the place became 
 the greatest repository of architectural, pictorial, and 
 sculptural skill, that the world has ever seen: a re- 
 sult to which even Nero's incendiarism indirectly 
 conduced, as affording an occasion for the city's be- 
 ing rebuilt under the higher scientific influences of 
 the times. The site occupied by modern Rome is not 
 precisely the same as that which was at any period 
 covered by the ancient city: the change of locality 
 
30 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 being towards the north-west, the city has partially 
 retired from the celebrated hills. About two-thirds of 
 the area within the walls, traced by Aurelian, are 
 now desolate, consisting of ruins, gardens, and fields, 
 with some churches, convents, and other scattered 
 habitations. Originally the city was a square mile 
 in area. In the time of Pliny the walls were 
 nearly twenty miles in circuit: now they are from 
 fourteen to fifteen miles round. Its original gates, 
 three in number, had increased in the time of the 
 elder Pliny to thirty-seven. Modern Rome has six- 
 teen gates, some of which are, however, built up. 
 Thirty-one great roads centered in Rome, which, 
 issuing from the Forum, traversed Italy, ran through 
 the provinces, and were terminated only by the boun- 
 dary of the empire. As a starting point a gilt pillar 
 (Milliarium Aureum) was set up by Augustus in the 
 middle of the Forum. This curious monument, from 
 which distances were reckoned, was discovered in 
 1823. Eight principal bridges led over the Tiber: of 
 these three are still relics. The four districts into 
 which Rome was divided in early times, Augustus in- 
 creased to fourteen. Large open spaces were set 
 apart in the city, called Campi, for assembUes of the 
 people and martial exercises, as well as for games. 
 Of nineteen which are mentioned, the Campus Mar- 
 tins was the principal. It was near the Tiber, whence 
 it was called Tiberinus. The epithet Martins was de- 
 rived from the plain being consecrated to Mars, the 
 god of war. In the later ages it was surrounded by 
 several magnificent structures, and porticoes were 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 31 
 
 erected, under which, in bad weather, the citizens 
 could go through their usual exercises. It was also 
 adorned with statues and arches. The name of 
 Fora was given to places where the people assembled 
 for the transaction of business. The Fora were of 
 two kinds — fora venalia, "markets," and fora civilia, 
 "law courts, etc." 
 
 Until the time of Julius Caesar there was but one 
 of the latter kind, termed by way of distinction Forum 
 Romanum, or simply Forum. It lay between the 
 Capitoline and Palatine Hills: it was eight hundred 
 feet wide, and adorned on all sides with porticoes, 
 shops, and other edifices, on the erection of which 
 large sums had been expended, and the appearance of 
 which was very imposing, especially as it was much 
 enhanced by numerous statues. In the centre of the 
 Forum was the plain called the Curtian Lake, where 
 Curtius is said to have cast himself into a chasm or 
 gulf, which closed on him, and so he saved his coun- 
 try. On one side were the elevated seats or sug- 
 gestus, a sort of pulpits from which magistrates and 
 orators addressed the people, usually called Rostra, 
 because adorned with the beaks of ships which had 
 been taken in a sea-fight from the inhabitants of An- 
 tium. 
 
 Near by was the part of the Forum called the Comi- 
 tium, where were held the assemblies of the people 
 called Comitia Curiata. The celebrated temple, bear- 
 ing the name of Capitol, of which there remain only 
 a few vestiges, stood on the Capitoline Hill, the high- 
 est of the seven: it was square in form, each side 
 
32 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 extending about two hundred feet, and the ascent to 
 it was by a flight of one hundred steps. It was one of 
 the oldest, largest, and grandest edifices in the city. 
 Founded by Tarquinius Priscus, it was at several 
 times enlarged and embellished. Its gates were of 
 brass, and it was adorned with costly gildings: 
 whence it is termed "golden" and "glittering," aurea, 
 fulgens. It enclosed three structures, the temple of 
 Jupiter Capitolinus in the centre, the temple of Mi- 
 nerva on the right, and the temple of Juno on the left. 
 The Capitol also included some minor temples or 
 chapels, and the Casa Romuly, or Romulus, cov- 
 ered with straw. Near the ascent to the Capitol was 
 the asylum (Cities of refuge). We also mention the 
 Basilicse, since some of them were afterwards turned 
 to the purposes of Christian worship. They were 
 originally buildings of great splendour, being appro- 
 priated to meetings of the senate, and to judicial 
 purposes. Here counsellors received their clients, 
 and bankers transacted their business. The earliest 
 churches, bearing the name of Basilicas, were erected 
 under Constantine the Great. He gave his own 
 palace on the Caelian Hill as a site for a Christian 
 temple. Next in antiquity was the church of St. 
 Peter, on the Vatican Hill, built a.d. 324, on the site 
 and with the ruins of temples consecrated to Apollo 
 and Mars. It stood about twelve centuries, at the 
 end of which it was superseded by the modem church 
 bearing the same name. 
 
 The Cirei were buildings oblong in shape, used for 
 public games, races, and beast-fights. The Theatra 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 33 
 
 were edifices designed for dramatic exhibitions: the 
 Amphitheatra (double theatres, buildings in an oval 
 form) served for gladiatorial shows and the fighting 
 of wild animals. That which was erected by the Em- 
 peror Titus, and of which there still exists a splen- 
 did ruin, was called the Coliseum, from a colossal 
 statue of Nero that stood near it. With an excess 
 of luxury, perfumed liquids were conveyed in secret 
 tubes round these immense structures, and diffused 
 over the spectators, sometimes from the statues which 
 adorned the interior. In the arena which formed the 
 centre of the amphitheatres, the early Christians often 
 endured martyrdom by being exposed to ravenous 
 beasts. 
 
 In modern Rome there are various things to excite 
 the curiosity of the stranger, but in my observations 
 I could only see four elements predominating above 
 everything, monks, nuns, priests and beggars. They 
 form a continued procession all day long of the most 
 spectacular carnival that could be seen in any of the 
 Babylons of the world. 
 
 And now while in Rome, we might ask the ques- 
 .tion: Who founded the church at Rome? The ques- 
 tion is equally interesting, if not important to the 
 Protestant and to Catholic. The Romish church 
 assigns the honour to Peter, and on this grounds an 
 argument in favour of the claims of the Papacy. But 
 strict search in and about all the obtainable sources 
 of knowledge, it does give no sufficient reason for 
 believing that Peter was ever even so much as within 
 the walls of Rome. Thus, by all inspired documents 
 
34 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 there is one title clear left to Pope and his scheme, 
 "unaccountable falsifier." As an ordained High Priest 
 in the Greek Orthodox Church, I have been for many 
 ydars studied in this particular subject. The Libraries 
 in Mount Athos gave me all the opportunities that 
 the high and exalted position, which I held, could 
 afford, to find the truth concerning the claims of 
 the Pope. The Fathers of the Church, Basil the 
 Great, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostomus, 
 and all the host of Ecclesiastical authorities agree 
 unanimously that the Lord Jesus never intended to 
 concede any right of supremacy, to Peter, over the 
 other apostles. Otherwise He (Jesus) would never 
 have said those wonderful words (Matt. 20, 25, etc.), 
 and Peter himself disclaiming the assertions of the 
 Papacy (Pet. i, 5, 3, etc.). And it is certain that there 
 is no instance on record of the apostle's (Peter) hav- 
 ing ever claimed or exercised this supposed power, 
 but on the contrary, he is oftener than once repre- 
 sented as submitting to an exercise of power upon 
 the part of others, as when, for instance, he went 
 forth as a messenger from the apostles assembled in 
 Jerusalem to the Christians in Samaria, and when 
 he received a rebuke from Paul. Now as a matter of 
 fact, if Peter was ever Great, that was, when he re- 
 pented for denying his Master. Repentance, there- 
 fore, is the only hope left for the Pope, if he ever 
 expects to hear the blessed voice "Feed my sheep." 
 
 In these days of enlightenment and progress, while 
 humane feelings are taking the place of spite and 
 hatred among the civilized nations, and religious 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 35 
 
 prejudice is giving way to good will and tolerance, 
 Rome is, from the Vatican point of view, the stum- 
 bling-block of every honest effort in the purification 
 of the individual heart and the uplifting of the millions 
 of souls that are downtrodden under the sandals of 
 hyenical monks. When the Pope, a few months ago, 
 rejected Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Fairbanks, two mod- 
 els of manhood and virtue, he made it clear to the 
 world that he is suffering incurably, from barbaritis, 
 and that his case is hopeless. But, it is to be hoped 
 that as Rome is already regenerated politically and 
 socially, so, we pray that in not far distant day, 
 Rome, shall also be regenerated spiritually. 
 
 In the meantime we shall continue our journey, and 
 now we hurry back to take the S. S. Germania from 
 Naples to New York. And when I was well located 
 on board, I kissed good-bye to my friend and brother 
 Christopher, thanking him for his assistance and 
 bidding to the old world FAREWELL! FARE- 
 WELL! 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Arrival 
 
 SUNDAY morning the i6th of May, 1903, the 
 very handsome S. S. Germania, cast anchor in 
 the docks of Brookl3m. Indeed, there is no particular 
 significance in a steamship arriving in the harbor of 
 Brooklyn and New York, for they come by hundreds 
 from all parts of the world, every day in the week and 
 many of them every Sunday of the year. It is for 
 the diligent observer that there are more lessons to 
 be drawn from a day passed along the Brooklyn 
 bridge than there are in the most exclusive circles of 
 the 400. And if I am allowed to make any com- 
 parison at all I should put it in the following short 
 sentences. The former lessons would be of a heart 
 from which all arteries transport the necessary ele- 
 ments to keep up undiminished the vitality of this 
 great cosmopolitan body, while the latter uncon- 
 trovertibly is only a part of the body, and unfortu- 
 nately it is the stomach that consumes lavishly even 
 to the core all that the whole body can produce. Yet 
 to an every day passer-by neither when he travels 
 across the Brooklyn bridge rubbing elbows with the 
 scores of the masses of humanity that hasten their 
 way unconsiderate by nobody, nor when in his big 
 red or yellow automobile hurrying up Fifth Avenue 
 
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 i^fl 
 
 R 
 
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 W^- 
 
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 ^^^B 
 
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 Rev, M. Golden 
 In His Street Attire as High Priest 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 37 
 
 he is planning in his mind a new scheme how to make 
 more money, or he is the heir of riches untold and 
 many millions are waiting for him to be scattered in 
 all winds, his social standard to keep up and his 
 neighbor's honor to bring down and as a rule to 
 accomplish his own destruction, the time is of no 
 value unless there is some profit in it for the only 
 scope in his life is self gratification. 
 
 The S. S. Germania in splendor and commodities 
 could proudly be called the Mauretania or Lucetania 
 of the Fabre Line, a very commendable company 
 judging from the good ofiicials and desirable attend- 
 ants we had on board the Germania. Her arrival at 
 the present voyage had exceptional significance, and 
 if every S. S. which arrives this side of the ocean had 
 parallel instances it would be only a matter of time 
 when all the legislators which are engaged in making 
 the emigration laws would find themselves out of 
 business, because the Kingdom of God that knows no 
 divisions and no distinctions of nations and races 
 should soon be established to make a heaven on earth 
 and there it would be one Lord — one faith — one 
 baptism for all human races, and all men could then 
 move in the different parts of the world without any 
 credentials and they could be welcome ever3rwhere as 
 members of the same family do when they live within 
 the boundaries of love. 
 
 Since the invention of Logos in the art of making 
 history, worth reading, through the ages the historian 
 derives his intelligence from all sources apt to con- 
 tribute to his object and unsparingly he treats 
 
38 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 zoology, botany and all kingdoms ending in some 
 kind of y, just to serve his purpose successfully. And 
 the writers of the Scriptures are not exempted to this 
 rule, inspired as it were, they mentioned almost every 
 known and unknown animal which our forefather 
 Noah saved in his Ark, and if the ass plays so an 
 important part in the Book of books, Germania surely 
 is entitled to some consideration in the history of my 
 conversion. 
 
 It will be impossible for me to even attempt to 
 skiagraph all that took place on board the Germania 
 from the time we left Naples of sunny Italy till we 
 arrived in the docks of Brooklyn, eleven and one-half 
 days' voyage with only a short stop at Gibraltar, that 
 fortified rock for which Great Britain is ready to play 
 all her power just to maintain that dry and ungrace- 
 ful rock, but, the key of two seas, and in Azores 
 Islands to exchange mail, our journey was a never to 
 be forgotten continual holiday. 
 
 One odd incident that kept our merriment all 
 these days, was the symptomatical number thirteen. 
 The S. S. Germania was canying on board several 
 hundred emigrants, mostly from sunny Italy, they 
 were representing all conditions and descriptions 
 coming to America to make their fortune, which but 
 a few exceptions is a sweet hope into every emi- 
 grant's heart and though often proves to them that 
 it was only a dream, and there are millions of emi- 
 grants all over ,this land who after many years of 
 hard work they are still struggling for a mere exist- 
 ence, yet they come and they shall continue to come 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 39 
 
 for it is the rule of the universe ; they simply cannot 
 resist the law that governs and moves the Sympan. 
 And the S. S. Germania was well occupied in its 
 various compartments, but there were only ten of us 
 voyagers in the reserved first cabins, and at meal 
 time with the first Captain at the head of the table 
 and one Commissioner representing the Government 
 and the first physician of the boat then we made up 
 the number 13; and though I am not a superstitious 
 person I was the first one to call the attention to 
 that fact, and there the fun began. The fellow voy- 
 agers insisting that should any danger of tempestuous 
 and stormy gale threaten their safety they had to 
 cast lots to know for whose cause the evil came, and 
 as I was the only representative of the religious senti- 
 ment, in all probability I had to undergo the same 
 experience as Jonah had, yet our fears did not even 
 approach any realization but instead as it was desir- 
 able to all on board we enjoyed a very pleasant voy- 
 age all the way and the Captain himself unreservedly 
 with his boyish cheerfulness expressed his gratifi- 
 cation for all that came out so perfectly satisfactory. 
 And the Captain being desirous to commemorate the 
 agreeable event he gave the night before our arrival 
 at Brooklyn a unique banquet in the big reception 
 hall with various symbolical decorations in honor 
 to his excellency the number 13. And to make the 
 event more memorable the Captain himself went 
 around the boat visiting all the emigrants and select- 
 ing 13 of the most musical Italian boys and girls with 
 their harps, mandolins and tambourines, a perfect 
 
40 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 stringed band, and while our merriment was in its 
 zenith he conducted them on the upper deck where the 
 reception hall was located into the adjoining room 
 and without warning we began to hear the waves 
 vibrating through the walls into our hall and soon 
 our ears were filled with divine'melodies. They were 
 playing Tosca, Puccini's most inspired composition 
 and the translation of these people behind the walls 
 , it really contained that pathos which all artists agree, 
 yet unable to explain how so many children of sunny 
 Italy became world-wide famous for the embodiment 
 of that musical and harmonious pathos of which 
 Tosca is the favorite piece of the greatest living tenor 
 Caruso. 
 
 In an unfortunate event that occurred to me some 
 time ago I lost the names of my fellow voyagers on 
 that naemorable trip on the Germania, yet I can well 
 recollect that there were two American newly-wedded 
 couples from the western cities, just returning home 
 from their extensive honeymoon trip abroad, and 
 there was a gentleman, very refined and well cultured 
 in literature whom we called, the Athenian, as he 
 hailed from Boston, which in the language of all for- 
 eigners is the Athens of the United States, and there 
 was the Jew merchant from Chicago, and another 
 gentleman, an Italian professor, who was going to 
 occupy an exalted position in one of the Roman 
 Catholic Institutions in New Orleans, and to our 
 delight there was Miss Maria, the only beloved 
 daughter of Dr. Achilles Rose of New York. Dr. 
 Rose is not only a very prominent practitioner as a 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 41 
 
 physician in New York, but he is acknowledged as 
 an eminent authority by the most exclusive Acad- 
 emies of Europe concerning medical matters, as well 
 as a great linguist in the ancient and modern lan- 
 guages, and a number of publications contributed to 
 the scientific research are the monuments of his 
 convincing penmanship. His daughter had just fin- 
 . ished a long course in the best college "Arsakeion" 
 exclusive institution for girls in Athens, Greece; and 
 she was well qualified to teach the Ancient and Mod- 
 ern Greek language as well as any professor in the 
 American colleges and universities. I had to go care- 
 fully myself in order to keep pace with her in the 
 exactness of pronunciation of the Greek words, and 
 wheri listening to her telling some of the joyful 
 experiences she experienced in learning this wonder- 
 ful Greek language I felt like a Sunday school 
 scholar impressed by her rhythmical and melodious 
 harmony in pronouncing every word and sentence 
 that sound like the old Greek music which even 
 Apollo himself would be glad to listen to. 
 
 With Miss Maria Rose there was Miss Margaret, 
 a tall slender figure with every characteristic of a 
 genuine Kentucky girl, a very respectable maiden, 
 she was caressing for Miss Maria Rose with motherly 
 tenderness, she was the playmate and constant com- 
 panion of Miss Maria now passing the bridge of her 
 teens; yet Miss Margaret could not tolerate seeing 
 her leaning on the rails of the Germania, she ap- 
 peared presumably afraid that some terrible whale 
 might swallow her little Maria whom she loved as 
 
42 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 much as a mother could love her own child, a pleas- 
 ure which she never had, to know and to love a child 
 of her own, and Maria appeared to appreciate the 
 kindness of her governess. 
 
 Now to make up the list of the ten voyagers there 
 was also your obedient servant, coming over to 
 America to study religious, social and industrial con- 
 ditions. An account of his reasons for taking this 
 step shall be given later on. At this time I must pro- 
 ceed to complete niy acquaintances on board the 
 Grermania. From the first day on board I find myself 
 in very friendly terms with every one of my fellow 
 voyagers, and before I knew it I was the father of 
 them all. As a High Priest dressed in my church 
 garbs, they just pasted in front of my name the 
 monkish title, Father, which I never accustomed my- 
 self though my official church name consists of about 
 a half a dozen titles. 
 
 The Captain of the Germania, a t)rpical French 
 gentleman very agreeable in all his ways, with my 
 little French enabled me to make myself understood. 
 I had the pleasure of passing many a moment in 
 pleasant conversation with him, and when I wanted 
 to speak to the Americans, my heart was longing 
 to learn all I could from them, as they were so kind 
 to me, and with Miss Maria's assistance I never went 
 lonesome, her acting as interpreter between me and 
 the Americans, for by that time I was not able to 
 even pronounce correctly a sentence in the English 
 language. 
 
 With all these acquaintances my time was well 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 43 
 
 occupied and to my personal delight, by chance, I 
 found my constant companion in the person of Dr. 
 Lucretius, the first physician of the Germania, an 
 Italian gentleman. By tokens and signs we found that 
 both of us belong to that great body of men that 
 knows each other as brothers in every corner of the 
 inhabited world. It was he. Dr. Lucretius, who came 
 to my cabin on the morning of the i6th of May, at 
 about s a. m., and knocking at the door, said, Father 
 Golden, we are now entering into the harbor of New 
 York, and if you want to enjoy a grand view of the 
 surrounding country you had better come out on the 
 upper bridge. I shall be there waiting for you to 
 explain some of the most beautiful sceneries that you 
 have ever looked upon in your life. And he was 
 correct, without any exaggeration, for when I leaped 
 from my bed and dressed myself as fast as I could 
 I went to meet my friend and brother, Dr. Lucretius. 
 Rushing up to the bridge I greeted him "Bon- 
 jorno, mio fratello" shaking his hand at the same 
 time, almost I cried out, this certainly is an artificial 
 imitation of the entrance to Bosphorus, and if it were 
 not for that great statue and mausoleum of Liberty, 
 which I coud see ahead of me, I would surely believe 
 that I was dreaming, it is like entering the harbor 
 of Constantinople, and just at this point, looking into 
 the face of my esteemed friend. Dr. Lucretius, I said 
 to him; let us hope that the day is not far distant 
 when we shall salute the God-giving Liberty in the 
 heart of the great city of Constantinople. That was 
 six years ago and every word I said it came out of 
 
44 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 my mouth as a prayer of my heart in all my sin- 
 cerity. Today I do thank God for it is a reality. Tur- 
 key is free! But she is like a child; she needs the 
 guidance of a strong hand to guide her in the path 
 of righteousness and love to God and bring her to 
 Christ who is the only one to give Liberty and Free- 
 dom "For whom He made free, is free indeed." 
 Turkey has accomplished the greatest part of her 
 own salvation, yea, she has done more than many 
 of the so-called Christian empires expected her to 
 do. They are now rubbing their eyes, and of course 
 it is their purpose in order to save their commercial 
 interests, they are going to put in her way all the 
 obstacles they can to overthrow the new Constitution, 
 and if Turkey fails in her reformation this time, it 
 would not be only her own fault. A great share of 
 the responsibility rests upon the shoulders of every 
 American man and woman who solemnly declares to 
 stand by and be a protector of the principles laid 
 down by Washington, the father not only of his own 
 country, but most of the civilized world. Unless 
 America arises equal to the occasion there is every 
 reason to entertain all kinds of fears from the Middle 
 and Western Europe's diplomats. 
 
 How many American active missionaries are there 
 in Constantinople, Smyrna, Aidin, Saloniki, Adana, 
 Ephesos and every city in Turkey today working 
 for the regeneration of the people who dared and 
 successfully broke down from his throne a Sultan? 
 Wake up, my dear reader and gird yourself with the 
 nolbe armor of your manhood and your womanhood 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 45 
 
 and do the best, the very best of your ability to help 
 the millions of mothers and children over in Turkey, 
 they are starving for spiritual food, they are crying 
 to you as your own brothers and sisters of the same 
 family of humanity; will you close your ears and not 
 listen to their cry? or will you open your heart, your 
 sympathy and your pocket-book and send off all the 
 missionaries you can to do the work? I pray that 
 you will, and God will reward you. in Heaven and 
 down here He will keep the days of your life sweet 
 in splendid memory that you have done your part ' 
 in the salvation of all mankind. 
 
 The opportunity may occur again to discourse this 
 very heart aching subject. Now, as we approach 
 the colossus of Liberty, Miss Maria Rose made her 
 morning appearance and before we all could ex- 
 change the "Bon Jour" salutations to her, she grace- 
 ftilly grasped the gentleman from Boston by the arm 
 and walking up and down the bridge with soldierly 
 step, began in an apparently joyful voice to sing, 
 audibly "My Country 'tis of thee, sweet land of Lib- 
 erty" and just as she was getting more enthusiastic 
 in her song, the gentleman from Boston uttered a 
 loud cry "Strawberries — fresh strawberries," and as 
 by explosion a heartiest laughter went out of every 
 mouth on the bridge, and the waves received on their 
 wings that expression of our gratitude to carry it to 
 the end of their destination, while the Germania drew 
 us nearer and nearer to the land of the free and the 
 home of the brave. 
 
 A call came to us all at this moment that the 
 
46 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 custom ofiScers from New York were already in the 
 reception room waiting for us to make our declara- 
 tions in accordance with the customary law, and by 
 the time I had complied with my duties, to that re- 
 spect, I heard a stentorian voice "Cast Anchor" and 
 turning around in a semi-circle, with center on my 
 right toe I endeavored to unfold the meaning of the 
 exciting motion. Sailors and officers of the boat 
 rushing in all directions, it seemed as though they 
 were preparing for a great battle, and determined to 
 win. The big S. S. Germania was tied in the docks of 
 Brooklyn and every voyager was ready to bid her 
 farewell. The steward of my cabin, uncalled, he was 
 on my side, and the thought came to me that it was 
 his last chance for his gratuities from me anyway. 
 He looked upon my face like a child expecting his 
 Christmas presents, and said, with a fainting smile. 
 Father, your trunk is on its way to your destination 
 and here is your valise and I am awaiting your pleas- 
 ure to direct you to the Sixth Avenue Elevated 
 Station, which will take you to the 123rd Street and 
 Seventh Avenue, Harlem, according to your wishes 
 to reach your dwelling place. The bell of the Ger- 
 mania was ringing eight o'clock a.m., when I was 
 bidding farewell to my steward with the instructions 
 how to reach the Elevated Station, and turning to 
 the first corner from the docks of Brooklyn, a famil- 
 iar voice I heard behind me calling "Father," and 
 instantly a hand took hold of the sleevie of my gar- 
 ment, and looking backward I saw Miss Maria Rose 
 with her governess, Margaret, and the gentleman 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 47 
 
 from Boston, who was still holding my garment, and 
 in good humor said, he, in his broken French, "Now 
 Father, we could not tolerate to see you go all alone 
 in the streets of New York dressed in these robes, 
 because if you only attract the curiosity of some mis- 
 chievous children there is no telling what may happen 
 to you, if they mistake you as a carnival dressed this 
 way just for sport; but, Miss Maria Rose, hastened 
 to aid, interrupting the gentleman. Father, you have 
 good luck, today is Sunday and early in the morning 
 you will be saved from great things which might 
 happen to you otherwise. Besides we are going as 
 far as sgth Street and the gentleman from Boston, he 
 is going to take the train at i2Sth Street, Harlem, 
 and there you will be within a few blocks from the 
 house you desire to go to. 
 
 They bought the ticket for me and soon the Ele- 
 vated was crossing the Brooklyn bridge. The grand 
 panorama on both sides of the bridge brought the 
 thought into my mind that if the architects of 
 America were able to accomplish such a wonder as 
 this, they would certainly have easier times to build 
 the Babel Tower witiiout any confusion of tongues; 
 but my breath went out of my breast and for a 
 moment I thought that the beating of my heart 
 stopped, when we reached that curving at iioth 
 Street and 8th Avenue, New York. The magnificent 
 sight from that tremendous height, looking to my 
 left at the mammoth advertising boards, the velvety 
 green fields and at the top of the hill that Episcopal 
 church, which will be when finished another architec- 
 
48 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 tural wonder, and looking to my right at the Central 
 Park which we just swiftly passed, now I see the 
 flat roofs of the buildings and on many of them the 
 washing of the family hanging, forgotten perhaps, 
 from last Saturday, it is indeed a grand sight which 
 the inhabitants of New York in that section, by being 
 accustomed to it, very little appreciate. 
 
 9.30, my friend from Boston, said, as we were de- 
 scending the stairways on the i2Sth Street and 8th 
 Avenue, as he looked at his time-piece. If it were 
 not for my train which I must take at 9.58 I would 
 gladly accompany you to your place, yet, said he, 
 you only have two blocks to walk southward and one 
 eastward and you will see the number on the left hand 
 side, and with a cordial hand shake he jtimped on the 
 electric car passing at the moment on i2Sth Street 
 towards New York-Boston R. R. station, to board 
 his train, and I started on my way to the place where 
 I was going to make my temporary home. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 First Day in New YorJc 
 
 IT is not my purpose in this little volume to make 
 any boast of myself as an historian. Book- 
 making is not my profession ; neither do I propose to 
 go into extensive details more than it is necessary 
 to harmonize the coincidents of events as they oc- 
 curred and the effect they produced in the develop- 
 ment of an unusual Christian career, and God knows 
 that my only desire is to reconcile the opposing 
 privileges of a meek and lowly Christian worker, to 
 be equal if not greater to those of a High Priest who 
 in his fulness of life though one of the most active 
 ecclesiastical officials in the highest circles of church 
 and society, his firm behef in success, knowing of 
 no fear, and daringly climbing up in higher ranks 
 among philosophical societies, holding such an ex- 
 alted position in the most ancient Christian church. 
 The church that holds the undisputable proof as the 
 first authentical apostolic establishment with founder 
 the apostle of the Gentiles himself. And who is the 
 student of the Scriptures, be he a Christian or phi- 
 losopher of the Epicurean or the Stoic system that 
 could reasonably argue that the oration on the Are- 
 opagus made by Paul to the Athenians being the 
 masterpiece and model of the most convincing 
 
so CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 speeches ever made in the Christian era? That this 
 High Priest, while enjoying all the comforts and 
 privileges belonging to his high office, together with 
 its honors and gorgeous trappings, does not attach 
 any over-weening importance to ecclesiastical dignity, 
 neither does he consider a "comedown" the step he 
 has taken, but he gives the simple, yet convincing 
 reason that he just follows the process of evolution 
 in Christianity, doing the will of his Master who 
 promised to all mankind one Lord — one Faith — 
 one Baptism. And for the last six years he has 
 proven that it is possible for a man to begin from 
 the very bottom of life, his nearest and dearest rela- 
 tives opposing him, with no friends to understand 
 his desires and his ambitions, to be a wanderer in 
 a great country like the United States, and travel 
 from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific Ocean, proud 
 to always be able to support himself and also help 
 someone on his way. Exercising the principle of the 
 Apostie Paul, working hard for his living, stranger 
 not only to the ethics and customs of the people 
 whose sympathetic hearts he was coming to win, but 
 unable to even put two sentences together in their 
 own language, and today here he is to tell you the 
 story, as true as your beautiful breath that keeps 
 your soul and body alive, and the only favor he asks 
 from you is that when you severely criticise the gram- 
 matical and syntactical site in the execution of this 
 work, you may in your kindness, remember that his 
 only resource to derive any philological assistance, 
 was a twenty-five cent Webster's dictionary, bought 
 from a second-hand book store. 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 51 
 
 This is my first day in New York. And looking 
 around to find the number of the house where I was 
 going to stay, my thoughts were so animated as to 
 feel that all the arteries and veins of my body through 
 my feet were kissing the ground upon which my heart 
 would soon appease with its Maker. 
 
 A few people, going to the Low Mass, I should 
 judge by the solemnity of their walk, men and 
 women, sent curious glances at the stranger dressed 
 in the robes on the street. By this time approaching 
 the 7th Avenue and not finding the desired number 
 I was just directing my steps towards a gentleman 
 dressed in some kind of uniform to inquire about 
 the place, when a young man tipped his hat in front 
 of me and raised the finger of his right hand and 
 pointed to the sign of the florist's store just a few 
 steps backwards. I could then plainly read the name 
 on the board above the door. It was the name very 
 dear to me, which, with longing heart I was looking 
 for. Almost immediately a man came out from 
 that same store with a broad smile on his face and 
 with a gentle bow, as though asking my permission, 
 he took my valise thus relieving me just in time, and 
 leading the way into the store I saw another gentle- 
 man behind a counter preparing a large floral design 
 from the rarest flowers of the season, for the funeral 
 of a most distinguished politician of Harlem. 
 
 Although I yield to no man in the appreciation 
 of a good smiling face and here I had two of them 
 and the most typical faces which are prominent in the 
 making of this heterogeneous republic, John, repre- 
 
52 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 senting the Huguenot and Dutch, and Jack whose 
 father and mother were Irish, and Jack was Irish too. 
 Both these gentlemen with pantomimic actions in a 
 few words which now I know were English words 
 but at that time I could not tell if they were Chinese 
 or Hindoo. They tried to make me understand that 
 Mr. George N., whom they knew I was looking for, as 
 they had heard him speaking of me and they saw my 
 photograph, and they were waiting notification of my 
 coming, and that they were struck by ecstasy at my 
 sudden appearance, he was at breakfast and that he 
 would soon be back so I had better step into his office 
 and rest myself while waiting for him. The expec- 
 tancy to meet my friend George N., it lengthened 
 every moment for me waiting in that little office. 
 Twenty-four years since I saw him last when I was 
 only ten years old, and even if I had not seen his 
 photograph in all these years I could distinguish him 
 among ten thousand. He was my first teacher in the 
 grammar school; neighbor in my home and a very 
 great distant relative. He always took especial inter- 
 est in my scholarship. My childhood and school days 
 were not all that I could desire for me, to be, for I 
 was an orphan, yet it was that orphan who always 
 carried the first or the second honors in the annual 
 examinations. It was for this reason, perhaps, that 
 my teachers were all well pleased with my progress. 
 The past is only a memory, yet when we look back in 
 the light of our sincerity we can trace every point and 
 every reason that contributed to our success or fail- 
 ure in our lives. It is not ft vision n^ith^r is there a 
 

INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 53 
 
 mere kinetoscope procession. The High Priest is 
 here waiting to meet his teacher with the same solem- 
 nity as in the old school days when he had to meet 
 his teacher after some of his occasional mischiefs. 
 With these and other agreeable memories relishing 
 my time in that ofifice, I heard a loud applause in the 
 store and the words "Father is here," aroused my 
 inquisitiveness and before I could leave my chair, 
 there was at the door of the office standing thv^ man 
 whom I wanted to see. Sturdy and resolute with two 
 slow steps he now extends a welcome hand to me and 
 as he called me by my childish nickname in response 
 said, I, my teacher! Yes, said he. How do you do 
 my Father? Why didn't you let me know when you 
 were coming so I could meet you at the pier; How 
 long have you been wandering to find this place? 
 And many other complimentaries, but, you must, he 
 went on saying, change your appearance at once, for 
 I am not going to disgrace myself and you too, if 
 we dare to walk on the streets with you dressed in 
 robes like this. Let us go up stairs in my room, and 
 I believe you can be fitted with a new suit of clothes 
 made to order for me which I was ready to try on 
 today, as the tailor just sent them here a little while 
 ago. Then you must have a very clean shave, my 
 goodness, there is a whole mask to come off your 
 face and the long black hair you have, you can make 
 some money by selling it to any fashionable lady. 
 Now, Father, you have to hurry, because the barber 
 shop closes at 12 o'clock and you only have the 
 necessary time to change your dress. 
 
54 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 The clothes which George N. offered for my 
 transfiguration with the exception of being made for 
 a man one inch taller than my own stature they 
 didn't look very awkward upon me and to escape 
 curiosity he took me through the alleys of a narrow 
 passage into the 124th Street, where an elderly Ger- 
 man kept a barber shop and when he was through 
 cleaning that over burdened head of mine, he was 
 almost exhausted, and liable to a fine, if any police- 
 man happened to see him working on Sunday after 
 12 o'clock. The barber closed the door of his shop 
 allowing time for us to just step out and we hastened 
 our way back to the store, now walking on 7th 
 Avenue. Jack, whose name already is mentioned 
 here, is one of the leading flower decorators in New 
 York City. He could make a cross of flowers look 
 like a picture, and he could make a bouquet for the 
 most particular bride, he could decorate a little chapel 
 around the corner and make it look as artistic as he 
 could decorate a rich mansion in the most exclusive 
 Riverside Drive. Jack made as much money as any 
 of his high grade fellow traders in Harlem, and he 
 had no home responsibilities, his widow mother being 
 what we might call well-to-do, for she owned con- 
 siderable real estate in that vicinity, yet. Jack, every 
 Monday morning had to obtain a loan for his carfare, 
 and more than half a dozen young ladies all around 
 Manhattan were particularly interested in Jack's wel- 
 fare. This is Sunday and one o'clock in the after- 
 noon, and Jack should be enjoying his holiday, and 
 there were already two of his female chums waiting 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 55 
 
 for him on the sidewalk. Yet Jack had always some 
 more time to spare to accommodate his employer 
 George N., who as now entered the store he gave the 
 synthematical pass-word "that's all," which in the 
 language of the employer and employees it means 
 "The boys may now go home." 
 
 But Jack, as he took a glimpse on me, in all his 
 Irish calibre he almost screamed: Help! St. Patrick, 
 what a metamorphosis is this? Is that you, Father? 
 You look now to me more like a butterfly out of a 
 caterpillar than anything in Ireland. Say, girls, call- 
 ing his friends from the outside, come in you girls, I 
 take the honor to introduce you to the Father . . . ., 
 but, my soul, I am ashamed to call you Father, so 
 fashionable a gentleman as you look now. You 
 shall not call me Father, said I, as long as you see 
 me dressed like a gentleman. I shall not, Jack said, 
 and with his girls took his departure, while George 
 N., who interpreted all this merriment, took a fresh 
 white rose and put it in my buttonhole. Let us go for 
 lunch, said he and I followed gladly for I felt it was 
 a timely call. 
 
 As George N. is a bachelor he takes his meals in no 
 particular place, anywhere from Harlem Casino or 
 Palm Garden or Manhattan Qub to a ten cent lunch 
 counter. Today he took me into a dollar a plate 
 restaurant on i2Sth Street. Before I was through 
 with my dinner, George N. made the remark to me 
 saying "if you always enjoy the American cooking 
 the way I observe you doing, you will never starve in 
 America, I assure you." It was the wisest prophecy 
 
S6 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 that George N. ever made about my future in 
 America. 
 
 After dinner we visited Grant's Tomb on River- 
 side Drive and on our return he gave me instructions 
 how to find the Waldorf Astoria hotel where Aleck, 
 one of his nephews had a position, and that Aleck 
 would make arrangements for the night for me and 
 that the following morning George N. would wait 
 for me to discuss my plans for the future. I left 
 him and when I was in my room which Aleck pro- 
 vided for me, the time was well nigh midnight. 
 
 After the day's excitement I hoped^ that a good 
 night's rest would refresh me anew and the next 
 morning would find me prepared for the work I chose 
 to devote my future life in this New World. With 
 a lightning quickness my mind examined all my past 
 life and with the same speed I made my conclusions 
 that there was no more any pleasure for me to look 
 back, neither was there any attraction in that garb 
 which so often is the representation of hypocrisy 
 itself. I felt so happy for my decision and with a 
 grateful heart I bent on my knees in prayer to Him 
 who lay down His life for my freedom and ray salva- 
 tion, and as an evidence of my good health, the night 
 passed undisturbed in sound sleep and in the morn- 
 ing when Aleck called me for breakfast I felt that 
 every fibre of my body was springing for action, and 
 with the last touch leaping from my bed the first day 
 pf new life went into history. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 High Priest 
 
 FOR the benefit of those who ignorantly, if not 
 deliberately by deceit, misled to believe that the 
 priest has any authority, which the truly converted 
 Christian could not exercise, the present chapter is 
 offered in the spirit of love without any fear of con- 
 tradiction or dispute, because the facts given here 
 are well established upon the Scriptural Truths and 
 the reader may at all times maintain the proofs to 
 disprove refutable arguments of persons whose only 
 purpose is to serve their own individual interests. 
 
 The priest, one who officiates in secret offices, it 
 is the definition given in Webster's dictionary. And 
 from the most authentic Biblical concordances we 
 derive the following information: The priest under 
 the law was a person consecrated and ordained of 
 God, not only to teach the people and pray for them, 
 but also to offer up sacrifices for his own sins and 
 those of the people. The priesthood was not annexed 
 to a certain family, till after the promulgation of the 
 law of Moses. 
 
 Before that time the first bom of every family, 
 the fathers, the kings, the princes, were priests, bom 
 in their city and in their own homes. Cain and Abel, 
 Noah, Abraham and Job, Abimelech and Labah, 
 
S8 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 Isaac and Jacob, offered themselves their own sacri- 
 fices. In the solemnity of the covenant that the Lord 
 made with his people at the foot of Mount Sinai, 
 Moses performed the office of meditator, and young 
 men were chosen from among the children of Israel 
 to perform the office of priests. But after that the 
 Lord had chosen the tribe of Levi to serve him in 
 his tabernacle, and that the priesthood was annexed 
 to the family of Aaron, then the right of offering 
 sacrifices to God was reserved to the priests alone of 
 this family. 
 
 Duties of the priests: The priests were required 
 to prove their descent from Aaron, to be free from 
 all bodily defect or blemish; must not be observed 
 mourning except for near relatives; must not marry 
 a woman that had been a harlot ; or divorced, or pro- 
 fane. The priest's daughter who committed whore- 
 dom was to be burned, as profaning her father. The 
 priests were to have the charge of the sanctuary and 
 the altar, which being once kindled the priest was 
 always to keep it burning. In later times, and upon 
 extraordinary occasions, at least, they flayed the 
 burnt-offerings and killed the Passover. They were 
 to receive the blood of the burnt-offerings in basins 
 and sprinkle it around about the altar, arrange the 
 wood and the fire, and to bum the parts of the 
 sacrifices. If the burnt sacrifices were of doves, the 
 priest was to nip off the head with the finger nal, 
 squeeze out the blood on the edge of the altar, pluck 
 off the feathers, and throw them with the crop into 
 the ash-pit, divide down the wings, and then com- 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 59 
 
 pletely burn it. He was to offer a lamb every morn- 
 ing and evening, and a double number on the Sab- 
 bath, the burnt-offerings ordered at the beginning 
 of months, and the same on the feast of Unleavened 
 Bread, and on the day of the First Fruits ; to receive 
 the meat-offering of the offerer, bring it to the altar, 
 take of it a memorial, and burn it upon the altar; to 
 sprinkle the blood of the peace-offerings upon the 
 altar around about, and then to offer of it a burnt- 
 offering; to offer the sin-offering for the sins of a 
 ruler or any of the common people; to eat the sin- 
 offering at the holy place; and the same way to offer 
 offerings for all the kinds of sin and the priest should 
 eat these offerings at the holy place; to offer for the 
 purification of women after child-birth; to judge of 
 the leprosy in the human body or garments (it is re- 
 markable that the Jewish race from the begiiming, 
 has been all through the ages a heavy victim of lep- 
 rosy). The priest was to make the ointment of spices ; 
 to prepare the water of separation ; to act as assessor 
 in judicial proceedings; to encourage the army when 
 going to battle, and probably to have charge of the 
 law. 
 
 The emoluments of the priests: The perquisites 
 of the priests were many and various, and as Philo 
 calls them very rich, and this statement holds good 
 all the way down to the Christian priest who inherited 
 most of the virtues of his Jewish predecessors. Thus 
 no wonder for the priests to keep their people in 
 dense ignorance of the historical originality of the 
 priesthood. And the high priest, besides all duties 
 
6o CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 and privileges already mentioned as common to him 
 and the ordinary priest, he must not marry a widow, 
 nor a divorced woman, or a profane, or that had been 
 a harlot, but a virgin Israelitess. He must not eat 
 anything that died of itself, or was torn by beasts; 
 must wash his hands and feet when he went into the 
 tabernacle to offer the mass. The high priest was the 
 divinely inspired judge and truly he was the supreme 
 ruler till the time of David, and again after the cap- 
 tivity. He would ask counsel of the Lord if a new 
 ruler was worthy or not and accordingly grant or 
 regret the appointment of the ruler. It is the privi- 
 lege which the Pope derives from Eleazar and trying 
 to exercise this privilege against the rulers of Europe 
 for fifteen centuries became the menace in the prog- 
 ress of humanity. The high priest had also un- 
 limited power upon the funds of the sanctuary. And 
 it may be out of proportion in this book to give a 
 complete description of all the privileges and regalia 
 of the high priest, yet the reader could easily imagine 
 the frivolities unfortunately existing even today in 
 the ceremonial dress of the high priest, and to confirm 
 this fact he only has to enter in the first Russian or 
 Greek or Roman Catholic church at any day of some 
 special celebration and there he cannot help but ob- 
 serve an imitation of the lamentable vanity of a high 
 priest of the old Jewish faith. And the truth is visible 
 to the naked eye. Would ever sincerity and priest- 
 hood meet in one and the same person it would 
 make the most paradox phenomenon, and such ex- 
 ceptional occurrences are very rare in the ecclesi- 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 6i 
 
 astical horizon, for virtue and priesthood are the very 
 logical antithesis, and chemically speaking they are 
 protogon matters not yielding to adulteration. Be- 
 tween priesthood and Christ there is an abyss of 
 argument, but there is no bridge to join both sides. 
 Priesthood on one side in the most pharisaic manner 
 imposing its superfluous authority upon all mortals. 
 And Jesus the Christ of God with his wounded side, 
 in the most emphatic manner, condemning the phari- 
 saic scheme, which is a continuation in the Greek — 
 Russian — Roman Catholic church: "For they bind 
 heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay 
 them on man's shoulders; but they themselves will 
 not move them with one of their fingers." And if the 
 words of the blessed Christ himself speaking in the 
 23d chapter of Matthew, have no effect upon the 
 consciousness of the priest, there is all vain to any 
 other way trying to bring him into the light of wis- 
 dom. In the history of all mankind there are three 
 distinct stages of priesthood, and in its two former 
 stages it had been a complete failure, in its present 
 stage is falling so fast, and it is condemned, already, 
 by all reasoning minds, that it is only a matter of time 
 before the human race shall be free from these para- 
 sites. The priest, of the Jewish faith, failed because 
 he was inhuman, the priest of the Greek idolatry 
 failed, because he was a philosophical fraud; and the 
 priest of the present time, shall fail, because he is 
 the very opposing visible enemy of God's kingdom. 
 The sacerdotal office of the priest, is anti-christian. 
 Here we shall attempt to only describe one piece 
 
62 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 of the dress of the high priest, the breast-plate 
 (rationale) ; a gorget, ten inches square, made of the 
 same sort of cloth as the ephod, and doubled so as to 
 form a kind of pouch or bag, in which was to be 
 put the urim and thummim, which are also mentioned 
 as is already known. The external part of this gorget 
 was set with four rows of precious stones; the first 
 row, a serdious, a topaz, and a carbuncle; the sec- 
 ond, an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond; the 
 third, a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst, and the 
 fourth, a beryl, an onyx and a jasper, set in a golden 
 socket. Upon each of these stones was to be en- 
 graven the name of one of the sons of Jacob. In 
 the ephod in which there was a space left open suffi- 
 ciently large for the admission of this pectoral, were 
 four rings of gold, to which four others at the four 
 comers of the breast-plate corresponded; the two 
 lower rings of gold being fixed inside. It was con- 
 fined to the ephod by means of dark blue ribbons, 
 which passed through these rings; and it was also 
 suspended from the onjrx stones on the shoulder by 
 chains of gold, or rather cords of twisted gold thread, 
 which were fastened at one end to two other larger 
 rings fixed in the upper corners of the pectoral, and 
 by the other end going aroimd the onyx stones on 
 the shoulders, and returning and being fixed in the 
 larger ring. And a splendid ornament upon the 
 breast was a winged scarabaeus, the emblem of the 
 Sun, and the unavoidable portion of the ceremonial 
 dress peculiar to the high priest was the miter, mitre 
 or Cidaris, a head gear of gold and silver and pre- 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 63 
 
 cious stones whose magnificence we would not dare 
 to describe in this work, but the reader may in his 
 life be fortunate enough to see one of these wonder- 
 ful paraphernaHa on the head of some of the now- 
 a-days self-styled representatives of Jesus Christ, 
 who came to seek and save the lost and he did not 
 make of himself a show in these follies of the old 
 Jewish faith that proved a failure. 
 
 That the priests in Israel more than once by their 
 indulgence went down to idolatry, the old testa- 
 ment abounds in evidences, but I shall only men- 
 tion the incidents of Eli the high priest and his two 
 sons, Hophni and Phinehas. Josephus says, the 
 high priest had also the very idolatrous symbolical 
 meanings of every part of his dress, which being 
 made of linen signified the earth; the blue color de- 
 noted the sky, being like lightning in its pome- 
 granate, and in the noise of its bells resembling 
 thunder. The ephod showed that God had made the 
 universe of four elements, the gold relating to the 
 splendor by which all things are enlightened, the 
 breast-plate in the middle of the ephod resembled 
 the earth, which has the middle place in the world. 
 The girdle signified the sea, which goes around the 
 world. The sardonyxes declared the sun and moon. 
 The twelve stones are the twelve months of signs 
 of the zodiac. The mitre is the heaven, because 
 above all. The seven lamps upon the golden candle- 
 sticks represent the seven planets, and so on every 
 article had a reference to some particle of the Egyp- 
 tian Deities. But the time came when man under- 
 
64 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 stood better God's plan of salvation. And divinely 
 inspired they fearlessly stopped all these idolatrous 
 practises. 
 
 Who could dare say, at the beginning of the six- 
 teenth century that God could only through Jesus 
 Christ save a soul without the necessity of a priest? 
 Yet today even the priest himself would not dare 
 say, not in a civilized community, that his presence is 
 necessary for the forgiveness of sin. But what of the 
 millions of people that are drifting away from God 
 with the idea, that the priest is taking care of their 
 souls? Am I criticising the priest? God forbid, for 
 I am not. There are good and bad priests, as far as 
 their personal character is concerned, as there are 
 good and bad professional Christians, I have met in 
 my Christian experience. But I will say, in the 
 authority of the word of God, that the man who dili- 
 gently searcheth the Scriptures and sincerely read his 
 Bible and still he insists in holding his sacerdotal 
 office and call himself a priest, he is deceived or he is 
 deceiving. 
 
 "Thou art a priest for ever after the order of 
 Melchizedec." Christ is the only priest, holy, harm- 
 less, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made 
 higher than the heavens, who needeth not daily, as 
 those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his 
 own sins, and then for the people's; for this he did 
 once, when he offered up himself. 
 
 The Church makes men high priests which have 
 infirmity but the power of God makes every man a 
 high priest, who offers up himself to live and work 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 65 
 
 for the salvation of all. "Whosoever believeth in Him 
 should not perish, but have everlasting life." God's 
 promises are true and the reader has only to study 
 the Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews, to be convinced 
 that the sacerdotal office of the priest sooner or later 
 has to go out of existence as the spirit of Christ 
 spreads upon the hearts of men and women and the 
 knowledge of His salvation makes them "Priests 
 unto God and His Father" and thus establish God's 
 kingdom upon the solid foundations of love. Then 
 shall they all be made unto kings and priests, and 
 they shall reign upon the earth. (Rev. 1-6, etc.) 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 Philosophy vs. Christianity 
 
 IN Plato's dialogue upon the duties of religious 
 worship, a passage occurs the design of which 
 appears to be to show that man could not, of him- 
 self, learn either the nature of the Gods, or the 
 proper manner of worshiping them, tmless an in- 
 structor should come from Heaven. The following 
 remarkable passage occurs between Socrates and 
 Alcibiades : 
 
 Socrates — "To me it appears best to be patient. 
 It is necessary to wait till you learn how you ought 
 to act towards the Gods, and towards men." 
 
 Alcibiades — "When, O Socrates, shall that time 
 be? And who shall instruct me? For most willingly 
 would I see this person, who he is." 
 
 Socrates — "He is one who cares for you; but, as 
 Homer represents Minerva as taking away darkness 
 from the eyes of Diomedes ; that he might distinguish 
 a God from a man, so it is necessary that he should 
 first take away the darkness from your mind, and 
 then bring near those things by which you shall know 
 good and evil." 
 
 Alcibiades — "Let him take away the darkness, or 
 any other thing, if he will; for whoever this man is, 
 I am prepared to refuse none of the things which he 
 commands, if I shall be made better." 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 67 
 
 Philosophy, led the Greeks to Christ, as the Law 
 did the Jewish. The wisdom of the world in their 
 efforts to give truth and happiness to the human soul, 
 was foolishness with God, and the wisdom of God — 
 Christ crucified — ^was foolishness with the philoso- 
 phers, in relation to the same subject; yet it was 
 divine Philosophy. An adopted means, and the only 
 adequate means, to accomplish the necessary end. 
 Said an apostle in speaking upon this subject, the 
 Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wis- 
 dom; but we preach Christ Crucified, unto the Jews 
 a stumbling-block and unto the Greeks foolishness. 
 But unto them which are called, bbth Jews and 
 Greeks, Christ the Power of God, and the wisdom 
 of God. The Jews, while they require a sign, did 
 not perceive that miracles, in themselves, were not 
 adopted to produce affection. And the Greeks, 
 while they sought after wisdom, did not perceive 
 that all the wisdom of the Gentiles, would never 
 work love in the heart. But the apostle preached — 
 Christ crucified — an exhibition of self-denial, of 
 suffering, and of self-sacrificing; love and mercy, en- 
 dured in behalf of men, which, when received by 
 faith, became "The power of God, and the wisdom 
 of God," to produce love and obedience in the 
 human soul. Paul understood the efficacy of the 
 Cross. He looked to Calvary and beheld Christ 
 crucified as the Sun of the Gospel system. Not, as 
 the Moon, reflecting cold and borrowed rays; but as 
 the Sun of righteousness, glowing with radiant mercy, 
 and pouring warm beams of life and love into the 
 open bosom of the believer. 
 
68 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 It is stranger that among philosophers of succeed- 
 ing ages there has not been wisdom sufficient to dis- 
 cover, from the constitutional necessities of the 
 human spirit, that demand for the instruction and 
 aid of the Messiah which Socrates and Plato dis- 
 covered, even in a comparatively dark age. And in 
 the whole history of human mind there is not a 
 more instructive chapter at once stranger and sad, 
 interesting to our curiosity and mortifying to our 
 pride, than the history of Platonic philosophy sink- 
 ing into gnosticism, or in other words, of Greek phi- 
 losophy merging in Oriental Mysticism; showing, on 
 the one hand the decline and fall of philosophy, and, 
 on the other, the rise and progress of S3mcretism. 
 Perhaps, also, it is the most remarkable instance on 
 record, that out of the religious, moral, and political, 
 in one word, the intellectual corruption which brings 
 on the fall of great and mighty nations, as it 
 doubtless was with Babylon and Thebes, and so we 
 know it to have been with Athens and Rome, God's 
 providence educes pure principles and higher hopes 
 for the nations and people that rise out of their ashes, 
 and who, if they will be taught wisdom and principle, 
 righteousness and peace, by the errors and suffer- 
 ings of thdse who have preceded them, may rise to 
 higher destinies in the history of men's conduct and 
 God's providence. 
 
 The reader most sincerely is asked to devote the 
 required time in any public library and study this 
 very interesting subject of "Gnosticism" from which 
 the most detrimental system in the Christian era was 
 
H.R. H. Pkince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, K. G., etc. 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 69 
 
 originated, "The Monasticism." In this ecclesiastical 
 order the writer had been distinguished with the rank 
 of "Archimandrites." 
 
 To what extent the celibacy of monks and nuns 
 debased the fundamental principles of Christianity 
 there are a number of publications whose authors are 
 eye-witnesses of the orgies practised in their own 
 monasteries, and the writer in his superior office in 
 two of the leading monasteries had had the oppor- 
 tunity to acquire all the necessary evidence to de- 
 moUsh every one of these hell-pits, to many a young 
 man and young woman innocent, otherwise, before 
 entering there, and drive away all these parasites 
 that have no consideration to any civil or moral law 
 and live upon the sweat of the brow of the long- 
 suffering Church slaves. 
 
 Within the bounds of philosophy, at this stage 
 of our progress it will be useful to recapitulate the 
 conclusions at which we have arrived, and thus make 
 a point of rest from which to extend our observa- 
 tions further into the plan of God for redeeming 
 the world, for "I am not sent but unto the lost 
 sheep of the House of Israel." This view is the 
 more appropriate as we have known in the history 
 of God's providence with Israel, which presents them 
 as a people prepared (so far as imperfect material 
 could be prepared) to receive the model which God 
 might desire to impress upon the nation. They were 
 bound to each other by all the ties of which human 
 nature is susceptible, and thus rendered compact 
 and united, so that every thing national, whether in 
 
^o CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 sentiment or practise would be received and cher- 
 ished with unanimous, and fervent, and lasting at- 
 tachment; and, furthermore, by a long and rigorous 
 bondage, they had been rendered, for the time being 
 at least, humble and dependant. Thus they were dis- 
 ciplined by a curse of providence, adopted to fit them 
 to receive instruction from their Benefactor with a 
 teachable and grateful spirit. 
 
 Their minds were shaken off from idols; and 
 Jehovah, by a revelation made to them, setting forth 
 his name and nature, had revealed himself as Divine 
 Being, and by his works had manifested his Almighty 
 power: so that when their minds were disabused of 
 wrong views of the Godhead, an idea of the first, 
 true, and essential nature of God was revealed to 
 them, and they were thus prepared to receive a 
 knowledge of the attributes of that Divine essence. 
 
 They had been brought to contemplate God as 
 their protector and Saviour. Appeals the most af- 
 fecting and thrilling had been addressed to their af- 
 fections; and they were thus attached to God as their 
 Almighty temporal Saviour, by the ties of gratitude 
 and love for the favor which he had manifested to 
 them. 
 
 When they had arrived on the further shore of 
 the Red Sea, thus prepared to obey God and worship 
 him with the heart, they were without laws either 
 civil or moral. As yet, they had never possessed any 
 national or social organization. They were therefore 
 prepared to receive, without predilection or preju- 
 dice, that system of moral instruction and civil polity 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 71 
 
 which God might reveal, as best adapted to promote 
 the moral interests of the nation. 
 
 From these conclusions we may extend our vision 
 forward into the system of revelation. This series of 
 preparations would certainly lead the mind to the 
 expectation that what was still wanting, and what 
 they had been thus miraculously prepared to receive, 
 would be granted: which was a knowledge of the 
 moral character of God, and a moral law prescribing 
 their duty to God and to men. Without this, the 
 plan that had been maturing for generations, and 
 had been carried forward thus far by wonderful ex- 
 hibitions of Divine wisdom and power, would be left 
 unfinished, just at the point where the finishing proc- 
 ess was necessary. 
 
 But besides the strong probability which the pre- 
 vious preparation would produce, that there would 
 be a revelation of moral law, there are distinct and 
 conclusive reasons, evincing its necessities. 
 
 The whole experience of the world has confirmed 
 the fact, beyond the possibility of scepticism, that 
 men cannot discover and establish a perfect rule of 
 human duty. Whatever may be said of the many 
 excellent maxims expressed by different individuals 
 in different ages and nations, yet it is true that no 
 system of duty to God and man, in any wise con- 
 sistent with enlightened reason, has ever been estab- 
 Hshed by human wisdom, and sustained by human 
 sanctions; and for many reasons, such a fact never 
 can occur. 
 
 But, it may be supposed that each man has, within 
 
72 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 himself, sufficient light from reason, and sufficient 
 admonition from conscience, to guide himself, as an 
 individual, in the path of truth and happiness. A 
 single fact will correct such a supposition. Con- 
 science, the great arbiter of the merit and demerit of 
 human conduct, has little intuitive sense of right, 
 and is not guided entirely by reason, but is gov- 
 erned in a great measure by what men believe. In- 
 deed, faith is the legitimate regulator of the con- 
 science. If a man has correct views of duty to God 
 and men, he will have a correct conscience; but if he 
 can, by a wrong view of morals and of the character 
 of God, be induced to believe that theft, or murder, 
 or any vice, is right, his conscience will be corrupted 
 by his faith. When men are brought to believe — ^as 
 they frequently do in heathen coimtries — ^that it is 
 right to commit suicide, or infanticide, as a reli- 
 gious duty, their conscience condemns them if they 
 do not perform the act. Thus that power in the 
 soul which pronounces upon the moral character 
 of human conduct, is itself dependent upon and regu- 
 lated by the faith of the individual. It is apparent, 
 therefore, that the reception and belief of a true rule 
 of duty, accompanied with proper sanctions, will 
 alone form in men a proper conscience. God has 
 so constituted the soul that it is necessary, in order 
 to the regulation of its moral powers, that it should 
 have a rule of duty, revealed under the sanction of 
 its Maker's authority; otherwise its high moral pow- 
 ders would lie in dark and perpetual disorder. 
 
 Further, unless the human soul be an exception. 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER ^3 
 
 God governs all things by laws adopted to their 
 proper nature. The laws which govern the material 
 world are sketched in the books on natural science; 
 such are gravitation, affinity, mathematical motion. 
 Those laws by which the irrational animal creations 
 are controlled are usually called instincts. Their 
 operation and design are sketched, to some extent, 
 in treatises upon the instincts of animals. Such is 
 the law which leads the beaver to build its dam, and 
 all other animals to pursue some particular habits 
 instead of others. All beavers, from the first one 
 created to the present time, have been instinctively 
 led to build a dam in the same manner, and so 
 their instinct will lead them to build till the end of 
 time. The law which drives them to the act is as 
 necessitating as the law which causes the smoke to 
 rise upwards. Nothing in the universe of God, ani- 
 mate or inanimate, is left without the government 
 of appropriate law, unless that thing being the 
 noblest creature of God: the human spirit. To sup- 
 pose, therefore, that the human soul is thus left 
 unguided by a revealed rule of conduct, is to sup- 
 pose that God cares for the less and not for the 
 greater : to suppose that He would constitute the 
 moral powers of the "soul so that a law was neces- 
 sary for their guidance, and then revealed none: to 
 suppose, especially in the case of the Israelites, that 
 he would prepare a people to receive, and obey with 
 a proper spirit, this necessary rule of duty, and yet 
 give no rule. But to suppose these things would be 
 absurd; it follows, therefore, that God would reveal 
 
74 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 to the Israelites a law for the regulation of their 
 conduct in morals and religion. 
 
 But physical law or necessitating instinct would 
 not be adapted in its nature to the government of a 
 rational and moral being. The obligation of either 
 to the soul would destroy its free agency. God has 
 made man intelligent, and thereby adapted his nature 
 to a rule which he understands. Man has a will and 
 a conscience; but he must understand the rule in 
 order to will obedience, and he must believe the 
 sanction by which the law is maintained before he 
 can feel the obligation upon his conscience. A law, 
 therefore, adapted to man's nature, must be addressed 
 to the understanding, sanctioned by suitable authority, 
 and enforced by adequate penalties. 
 
 In accordance with these legitimate deductions, 
 God gave the Israelites a rule of life — ^the moral 
 law — succintly comprehended in the Ten Command- 
 ments. And as affectionate obedience is the only 
 proper obedience he coupled the facts which were 
 fitted to produce affection with the command to 
 obey; saying, "I am the Lord thy God, which brought 
 thee out of the land of Egypt, and from the house 
 of bondage." Therefore, if ye love the Lord ye shall 
 surely keep His commandments. 
 
 Further, the only begotten Son of God, who, in 
 order to fulfil the law gave himself a ransom for the 
 salvation of all mankind, made the plan clearer to 
 "Whomsoever believeth on Him?" saying; "This is 
 My commandment, that ye love one another, as I 
 have loved you." 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 75 
 
 Therefore, John, whom history acknowledges as 
 the Socrates of the Christian philosophy in his per- 
 sonal knowledge of Divine revelations, was glad to 
 testify to the fact that "God is Love." 
 
 And now with my whole soul lifted up to God I 
 can sing: 
 
 My heart is fixed, eternal God : fixed on Thee, 
 
 And my unchanging choice is made, Christ for me! 
 
 He is my Prophet, Priest, and King, who did for me 
 
 salvation bring 
 And while I've breath I mean to sing, Christ for me. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 God's Providence 
 
 IN facts from Christian and philosophical stand- 
 points it has been demonstrated that the in- 
 fallible Supreme Ruler of all hiunan spirits has made 
 His final provision for the safety of each and every 
 individual soul for its temporal and eternal welfare. 
 Now I must prove to my readers' perfect satisfaction 
 that to discard all the dignities and privileges of a 
 high priest and become a lowly worker for Christ, it 
 is not a mere accident nor is it an act of necessity as 
 far as temporal necessities are concerned; but, it is 
 a magnificent living monument of God's Providential 
 manifestations. In order to protect my reader in his 
 judgment from any undue prejudice I have taken 
 pjuns to present herewith all the obtainable facts in 
 regard to God's Providence existing and exercising 
 its oflSce upon even to the most microscopical atom. 
 Because, it is required by the law of justice, to com- 
 prehend this great attribute of God's Providence, in 
 order to understand, how, all things work together 
 for good to them that love God, to them who are 
 the called according to His purpose. 
 
 The Latin etymology of the word Providence is 
 from (Providentia, Pro-videre), and originally meant 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER ^^ 
 
 foresight. The corresponding Greek word (Pronoia) 
 means forethought. By a well-known figure of 
 speech, called metonymy, we use a word denoting 
 the means by which we accomplish anything to de- 
 note the end accomplished; we exercise care over 
 anything by means of foresight, and indicate that 
 care by the word foresight. On the same principle 
 the word Providence is used to signify the care God 
 takes of the universe. As to its inherent nature, it 
 is the power which God exerts, without intermission, 
 in and upon all the works of his hands. In the lan- 
 guage of the school-men it is a continual creation 
 (creation continua). But defined as to its visible 
 manifestations, it is God's preservation and govern- 
 ment of all things. As a thing is known by its op- 
 posites, the meaning of Providence is elucidated by 
 considering that it is opposed to fortune and fortui- 
 tous accidents. 
 
 Providence, considered in reference to all things 
 existing, is termed by Knapp universal; in reference 
 to moral beings, special; and in reference to holy or 
 converted beings, particular. Every thing is an 
 object of Providence in proportion to its capacity. 
 The Disciples, being of more value than many spar- 
 rows, were assured of greater providential care. By 
 Providence being universal is intended, not merely 
 that it embraces classes of objects or greater matters, 
 but that nothing is too minute or insignificant for 
 its inspection. 
 
 Providence is usually divided in three divine 
 acts, Preservation, Co-operation and Government i. 
 
78 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 By preservation is signified the causing of existence 
 to continue. 2. Co-operation is the act of God which 
 causes the powers of created things to remain in 
 being. It is not pretended that the existence of the 
 powers of the things are ever separated, but only 
 that they are distinguishable in mental analysis. Co- 
 operation varies with the nature of the objects to- 
 wards which it is exercised. 3. Government, as a 
 branch of Providence, is God's controlling all created 
 things so as to promote the highest good of the 
 whole. To this end every species of being is acted 
 upon in a way confirmable to its nature ; for instance, 
 inanimate things by the laws of physical influence; 
 brutes according to the laws of instinct; and free 
 agents according to the laws of free agency. More- 
 over, as Providence has respect to the nature which 
 God has been pleased to design to each various ob- 
 ject, so, in common with every other divine act, it is 
 characterized by divine perfections. It displays om- 
 nipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, holiness, jus- 
 tice, and benevolence. It has been sometimes con- 
 tended that Providence does not extend to all things, 
 or to unimportant events, and chiefly for four rea- 
 sons. Such an all-embracing providence, it is said, 
 would (i) be distracting to the mind of God; or (2) 
 would be beneath His dignity; or (3) would interfere 
 with human freedom; or (4) would render God un- 
 just in permitting evil to exist. In reply to these 
 objections against a providence controlling all things 
 without exception, it may be observed that the third 
 and fourth suggest difficulties which press equally, in 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 79 
 
 fact, upon all hypothesis, not only as to providence, 
 but as to creation, and which shall be more fully ex- 
 plained in the sequel. 
 
 As to the first objection, that the minutiae of the 
 creation are so multifarious as to confuse the mind 
 of God, we are content to let it refute itself in every 
 mind which has any just sense of divine knowledge 
 and wisdom. The second objection, that some things 
 are beneath God's notice, if it be not a captious cavil, 
 must result from pushing too far the analogy be- 
 tween earthly kings and the King of kings. It is 
 an imperfection in human potentates that they need 
 vicegerents; let us not then attribute such a weak- 
 ness to God, fancying him altogether such a one as 
 ourselves. Again, it is to this day doubtful whether 
 the microscope does not display the divine perfec- 
 tions as illustriously as the telescope; there is there- 
 fore no reason to deny a providence over animalcula 
 which we admit over the constellated heavens. What 
 is it that we dare call insignificant? The least of all 
 things may be as a seed cast in to the seed-field of 
 time, to grow there and bear fruit, which shall be 
 multiplying when time shall be no more. We can- 
 not always trace the connections of things. We do 
 not ponder those we can trace: or we should trem- 
 ble to call anything beneath the notice of God. It 
 has been eloquently said that where we see a trifle 
 hovering unconnected! in space, higher spirit can 
 discern its fibres stretching through the whole ex- 
 panse of the system of the world, and hanging on 
 the remotest limits of the future and the past. 
 
8o CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 In reference to the third and fourth objections 
 before mentioned, namely, that an all-embracing 
 providence is incompatible with divine justice and 
 human freedom, it should be considered that, in con- 
 templating God's Providence, the question will often 
 arise, why was mortal evil allowed to exist? But as 
 these questions meet us at every turn, and, under 
 different forms, may be termed the one and the 
 only difficulty in theology, it i^ already considered in 
 the previous chapter of this work, and may therefore 
 require the less notice in the present article. We 
 should in all humility preface whatever we say on 
 the permission of evil (such as, mysticism, in reli- 
 gious bodies) with a confession that it is an inscru- 
 table mystery, which our faith receives, but which our 
 reason could not prove either to be or not to be 
 demanded by the perfection of God. But, in ad- 
 dition to the vindication of God's ways which may 
 be found in the over-ruling of evil for good, the 
 following theories deserve notice: — 
 
 1. Occasionalism, or the doctrine that God is the 
 immediate cause of all men's actions. It is so called, 
 because it maintains that men only furnish God an 
 occasion for what he does. It degrades all second 
 causes to mere occasions, and turns men into passive 
 instruments. 
 
 2. Mechanism. Many, alarmed at the conse- 
 quences which occasionalism would seem to involve, 
 have embraced an opposite scheme. They criticise 
 the definition of the laws of nature, and contend 
 that occasionalism derives all its plausibility from 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 8i 
 
 adroitly availing itself of the ambiguities of lan- 
 guage. They would have us view the creation as a 
 species of clock, or other machinery, which, being 
 once made and wound up, will for a time perform 
 its movements without the assistance or even presence 
 of its maker. But reasons press too far the analogy 
 betwen the Creator and an artisan. So excellent 
 a man as Baxter was misled by this hypothesis, 
 which evidently is as derogatory to God as oc- 
 casionalism is fatal to the moral agency of man. 
 
 3. The authors of the third scheme respecting 
 the mode in which Providence permits sin sought to 
 be "Eclectics" or to find a path intermediate between 
 Mechanism' and Occasionalism. In their judgment, 
 man is actuated by God, and yet is at the same time 
 active himself. God gives man the power of action, 
 and preserves these powers every moment, but he 
 is not the efficient cause of free actions themselves. 
 This they say, is involved in the very idea of a moral 
 being, which would cease to be moral if it were sub- 
 jected to the control of necessity, and not suffered 
 to choose and to do what it saw to be the best 
 according to the laws of freedom. But it is asked, 
 why did God create men free, and therefore fallible? 
 It were presumption to think of answering this ques- 
 tion adequately. It belongs to the deep things of 
 God. But, among the possible reasons, we may 
 mention, that if no fallible beings had been created, 
 there could have been no virtue in the universe; for 
 virtue implies probation, and probation a liability 
 to temptation and sin. Again, if some beings had 
 
82 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 not become sinful, the most glorious attributes of 
 God would never have been so fully exerted and 
 displayed. How could His wisdom and mercy and 
 grace have been adequately manifested, except by 
 suffering a portion of His creatures to become such 
 as to demand the exercise of those attributes? How 
 else could He have wrought the miracle of educing 
 good from evil? In this connection we may allude 
 to the third chapter of Romans, where as in other 
 passages, it is declared, that the good which evil 
 may be over-ruled to produce, cannot palliate, much 
 less excuse, the guilt of sinners, or of those who say, 
 "Let us do evil that good may come." 
 
 Among the proofs of Divine Providence may be 
 reckoned the following: — i. One argument in proof 
 of Providence is analogous to one mode of proving 
 a creation. If we cannot account for the existence 
 of the world without supposing its coming into exist- 
 ence, or beginning to be; no more can we account 
 for the world continuing to exist, without supposing 
 it to be preserved; for it is as evidently absurd to 
 suppose any creature prolonging as producing its own 
 being. A second proof of Providence results from 
 the admitted fact of creation. Whoever has made 
 any piece of mechanism, therefore takes pains to 
 preserve it. 
 
 Parental affection moves those who have given 
 birth to children to provide for their sustenation and 
 education. It is both reasonable and scriptural "to 
 contemplate God as sustaining the universe because 
 He made it. Thus David, having promised that the 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 83 
 
 world was made by God, immediately descends to 
 the course of his Providence. (Ps. xxiii. 6.) The 
 creation also evinces a Providence by t)roving God's 
 right to rule, on the admitted principle that every one 
 may do what he will with his own. 
 
 A third proof of Providence is found in the divine 
 perfections. Since, among the divine perfections, are 
 all power and all knowledge, the non-existence of 
 Providence, if there be none, must result from a 
 want of will in God. But no want of will to exercise 
 a Providence can exist, for God wills whatever is 
 for the good of the universe, and for His own glory ; 
 to either of which a Providence is clearly indispen- 
 sable. God therefore has resolved to exercise His 
 power and knowledge so as to subserve the best 
 ends with His creation. "He that denies Providence," 
 says Charnock, "denies most of God's attributes; he 
 denies at least the exercise of them; he denies his 
 omniscience, which is the eye of Providence; mercy 
 and justice, which are the arms of it; power, which 
 is its life and motion; wisdom, which is the rudder 
 whereby Providence is steered; and holiness, which 
 is the compass and rule of each motion." This ar- 
 gument for a Providence might be made much more 
 impressive, did our limits allow us to expand it, so 
 as to show, step by step how almost every attribute, 
 if not directly, yet by impUcation, demands that God 
 put forth an unceasing sovereignty over all His 
 works. 
 
 A fourth proof of God's Providence appears in 
 the order which prevails in the universe. We say 
 
84 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 the order which prevails, aware of the occasional 
 apparent disorder that exists, which we have already 
 noticed, and shall soon treat of again. That summer 
 and winter, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, day 
 and night, are fixed by law, was obvious even to 
 man who never heard of God's covenant with Noah. 
 Accordingly the ancient Greeks designated the cre- 
 ation by a word which means order (cosmos). But 
 our sense of order is keenest where we discern it 
 in apparent confusion. The motions of the heavenly 
 bodies are eccentric and intervolved, yet are most 
 regular when they seem most lawless. They were 
 therefore compared by the earliest astronomers to 
 ' the discords which blend in a harmony, and to the 
 wild starts which often heighten the graces of a 
 dance. Modern astronomy has revealed to us so 
 much miraculous symmetry in celestial phenomena, 
 that it shows us far more decisive proofs of a Ruler 
 seated on the circles of the heavens, than were 
 vouchsafed to the ancients.. Moreover, many discover 
 proofs of a Providence in such facts as the propor- 
 tion between the two sexes, the diversities of the 
 continents, as well as human nature and the n&ture 
 of all things continuing always the same; since such 
 facts show that all things are controlled by an un- 
 changing power. 
 
 An objection to proofs of Providence, derived 
 from the order of the universe, is thought to spring 
 from the seeming disorders to which we cannot shut 
 our eyes. Much is said of plagues and earthquakes, 
 of drought, flood, frost and famine, with a thousand 
 
Rev. M, Golden 
 The High Priest in Church Ceremonial Attire 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 85 
 
 more natural evils. But it deserves consideration 
 whether, if there were no Providence, these anom- 
 alies would not be the rule instead of the exception; 
 whether they do not feelingly persuade us that that 
 curse of nature is upheld by a power above nature, 
 and without which it would fall to nothing ; whether 
 they may not be otherwise necessary for more 
 important ends than fall within the scope of our 
 knowledge. 
 
 A fifth proof of Providence is furnished by the 
 fact that so many men are here rewarded and pun- 
 ished according to a righteous law. The wicked often 
 feel compunctious visitings in the midst of their sins, 
 or smart under the rod of civil justice, or are tor- 
 tured with natural evils. With righteous all things 
 are in general reversed. The miser and envious are 
 punished as soon as they begin to commit their re- 
 spective sins; and some virtues are their own present 
 reward. But we would not dissemble that we are 
 here met with important objections, although in- 
 finitely less, even though they were unanswerable, 
 than beset such as would reject the doctrine of 
 Providence. 
 
 It is said, and we grant, that the righteous are 
 trodden under foot, and the vilest men exalted; that 
 the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the 
 strong; that virtue starves, while vice is fed, and that 
 schemes for doing good are frustrated, while evil 
 plots succeed. But we may reply : 
 
 I. The prosperity of the wicked is often appar- 
 ent, and well styled a shining misery. Who believes 
 
86 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 that Nero enthroned was happier than Paul in 
 chains ? 
 
 2. We are often mistaken in calling such or such 
 an aflflicted man good, and such or such a prosperous 
 man bad. 
 
 3. The miseries of good men are generally oc- 
 casioned by their own faults, since they have been 
 so fool-hardy as to run counter to the laws by which 
 God acts, or have aimed at certain ends while neg- 
 lecting the appropriate means. 
 
 4. Many virtues are proved and augmented by 
 trials, and not only proved, but produced, so that 
 they would have had no existence without them. 
 Many a David's noblest qualities would never have 
 been developed but for the impious attempts of 
 Saul. Job's integrity was not only tested but 
 strengthened by Satan being permitted to sift him 
 as wheat. Passions, experience and hope were 
 brought as ministering angels to man, of whom the 
 world was not worthy, through trials of cruel mock- 
 ings and scourgings. 
 
 5. The unequal distribution of good and evil, so 
 far as it exists, carries our thoughts forward to the 
 last judgment, and a retribution according to the 
 deeds done in the body, and can hardly fail of throw- 
 ing round the idea of eternity a stronger air of real- 
 ity than it might otherwise have done. All perplex- 
 ities vanish as we reflect that, "He cometh to judge 
 the earth." 
 
 6. Even if we limit our views to this world, but 
 extend them to all our acquaintances, we cannot doubt 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 87 
 
 that the tendencies, though not always the effects, of 
 vice are to misery, and those of virtue to happiness. 
 These tendencies are especially clear if our view em- 
 braces a whole life-time, and the clearer the longer 
 the period we embrace. The Psalmist was at first 
 envious at the foolish, when he saw the prosperity of 
 the wicked; but as his views became more compre- 
 hensive, and he understood their end, his language 
 was, "How are they brought into desolation as in a 
 moment; they are utterly consumed with terrors." 
 The progressive tendency of vice and virtue to reap 
 each its appropriate harvest is finally illustrated by 
 Bishop Butler, best of all perhaps in his picture of 
 an imaginary kingdom of the good, which would 
 peacefully subvert all others, and fill the earth. In- 
 deed, as soon as we leave what is immediately before 
 our eyes, and glance at the annals of the world, we 
 behold so many manifestations of God, that we may 
 adduce as a sixth proof of Providence the facts of 
 history. The giving and transmission of a revelation, 
 as the Mosaic and the Christian — ^the raising up of 
 Prophets, Apostles and Defenders of the Faith — 
 the ordination of particular events, such as the Refor- 
 mation — the more remarkable deliverance noticed 
 in the lives of those devoted to the good of the 
 world, etc., all indicate the wise and benevolent care 
 of God over the human family. But the historical 
 proof of a Providence is perhaps strongest where the 
 wrath of man has been made to praise God, or 
 where efforts to dishonor God have been constrained 
 to do him honor. Testimony in favor of piety has 
 
88 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 fallen from the impious, and has had a double vol- 
 ume, as coming from the unwilling. They who 
 have fought against the truth have been used by 
 God as instruments of spreading the knowledge of 
 it, awakening an interest in it, or stimulating Chris- 
 tians to purify it from human additions, and to ex- 
 hibit its power. The scientific researches also with 
 which infidels have wearied themselves to overthrow 
 a revelation have proved at last fatal to their daring 
 scepticisms. Too many histories, like Gibbons', have 
 been written as if there were no God in the heav- 
 ens, swa3ring the sceptre of the earth. But a better 
 day is approaching; and it is exhilarating to observe 
 that AJison, the first British historian of the age, 
 writes in the spirit which breathes in the historical 
 books of the Bible, where the free actions of man 
 are represented as inseparably connected with the 
 agency of God. If we may judge of the future by 
 the past, as the scroll of time unrolls, we, or our 
 posterity, and some think glorified spirits in a yet 
 higher degree, shall see more and more plainly the 
 hand of God operating, till every knee shall bow. 
 Judgments, now a great deep, shall become as the 
 light that goeth forth. The tides of ambition and 
 avarice will all be seen to roll in subserviency to the 
 designs of God. To borrow the illustration of an- 
 other, "we shall behold the bow of God encircUng 
 the darkest storms of wickedness, and forcing them 
 to manifest His glory to the universe." 
 
 As a seventh ground for believing in Providence, 
 it may be said that Providence is the necessary basis 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 89 
 
 of all religion. For what is religion? One of the 
 best definitions calls it the belief in a super-human 
 power, which has great influence in the human af- 
 fairs, and ought therefore to be worshiped. But 
 take away this influence in the human affairs, and 
 you cut off all motive to worship. To the same pur- 
 pose is the text in Hebrews: "He that cometh to 
 God must believe that He is, and He is a rewarder 
 of such as diUgently seek Him." If then the reli- 
 gious sentiments thrill us not in vain — if all at- 
 tempts of all men to commune with God have not 
 always and everywhere been idle — there must be a 
 Providence. 
 
 In the eighth place, we may advert for a moment 
 to the proof of Providence from the common con- 
 sent of mankind, with the single exception of athe- 
 ists. The Epicureans may be classed with atheists, 
 as they are generally thought to have been atheists 
 in discourse, and a God after their imaginations 
 would be, to all intents and purposes, no God. The 
 Stoics were also atheists, believing only in a blind 
 fate arising from a perpetual concatenation of causes 
 contained in nature. The passages acknowledging a 
 Providence in Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and all the 
 ancient moralists, are numerous and decisive, but too 
 accessible or well-known to need being quoted. 
 
 In the last place, the doctrine of Providence is 
 abundantly proved by the Scriptures. Some times it 
 is declared that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom 
 of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will; as 
 much as to say that nothing can withstand His 
 
90 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 power. Again, lest we may think some things be- 
 neath His notice, we read that He numbereth the 
 hairs of our heads, careth for lilies, and disposeth all 
 the lots which are cast. The care of God for man 
 is generally argued, a fortiori, from His care for 
 inferior creatures. One Psalm (xci) is devoted to 
 show the providential security of the Godly: another 
 (xciii) shows the frailty of man; and a third (civ) 
 the dependence of all orders in creation on God's 
 Providence for food and breath. In Him, it is else- 
 where added, we live, and move, and have our 
 being. He, in the person of Christ, sustaineth all 
 things by the Word of His power, and from Him 
 Cometh down every good and perfect gift. But 
 nowhere perhaps is a Providence so pointedly as- 
 serted and so sublimely set forth as in some of the 
 last chapters of Job; and nowhere so variously, win- 
 ningly, and admirably exhibited as in the history of 
 Joseph. 
 
 And nowhere could be found more brilliantly 
 illuminating its substance than in our own hearts and 
 lives. The fool hath said in his heart, there is no 
 God. To undervalue God's Providence it is the 
 most dreadful insult that a fool could dare conceive 
 in his mind against God's existence. But the wise 
 hearken to His voice. 
 
 My son, if thou wilt receive my words, 
 And hide my commandments with thee; 
 So that thou incline thine ear to wisdom. 
 And apply thy heart to understanding; 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 91 
 
 Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, 
 
 And liftest up thy voice for understanding; 
 
 If thou seekest her as silver, 
 
 And searchest for her as for hid treasures; 
 
 Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, 
 
 And find the knowledge of God. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 New York to California 
 
 WHEN I was but a little boy, I can well recol- 
 lect, a nice little pond in the hollow of two 
 hills beautifully situated, near the school house 
 where the pupils would enjoy the intervals of their 
 school time. How I would wonder at the experi- 
 ment of throwing a stone in the pond and watching 
 anxiously the circles of water growing larger and 
 larger till reaching the banks of the pond and there 
 they would break, as though in despair for the 
 limitations of their enlarging tendencies. It seems 
 to me, now, a parallel despair threatens my heart, 
 for being obliged to compact this story of my con- 
 version. Yet, in view of the fact that the American 
 reader is a greater admirer of quality rather than 
 quantity, I must content myself by giving a brief 
 account on the practical side of my personal ex- 
 perience as a Christian worker, among the rich and 
 the poor, the high and the low classes and masses, 
 in cities and towns, sunshine or clouds, rain or snow, 
 by day or by night; I made myself servant unto all 
 men, that I might by all means save some, and this 
 I do for the Gospel's sake. And, it is only proper, 
 to confess, publicly, that I am prepared to suffer 
 all things, for the love which I feel in my heart to be 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 93 
 
 of some service to my own people, an historical race 
 of people they are, drifting away from God, blindly 
 allowing blind priests to lead them into the ditch. 
 There is a cheering prospect about this people, for 
 whose salvation I have devoted my life, that when 
 Christ enters into the heart of a Greek, there is very 
 little hope left for the devil to induce him to be a 
 backslider. A truly converted Greek soul is worthy 
 of all the joy that the angels in heaven rejoice over 
 one sinner that repenteth. How much more rejoicing 
 shall be there, if we get converted all the Greeks 
 that are living in the United States and use them as a 
 kindling matter to start the fire of salvation in the 
 hearts of the millions of people under the Greek and 
 Russian church slavery, all round the Mediterranean 
 countries ? 
 
 With this and many other social and industrial 
 problems laying upon my heart, I find the atmos- 
 phere, in New York, too close for any opening and 
 very little encouragement for a beginning. And the 
 atmosphere grew more asphyxiating every day with 
 the arguments of my friend George N. He never 
 had any sympathy with the subject so dear to my 
 own heart, his highest ambition being money-making, 
 for which end he relinquished the Presbyterian 
 pulpit, after being duly graduated from a Presby- 
 terian Seminary for ministerial ordination. It was 
 only natural that our thoughts and our ambitions 
 should face each other suspiciously from the diamet- 
 rical opposite ends. And with all due respect to 
 my old teacher and gratefully acknowledging his hos- 
 
94 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 pitality for entertaining me many a day, I find out 
 that at the best I had to be in his mercy, as long as I 
 was not able to explain myself, to the American peo- 
 ple, speaking in their own language. And, as diffi- 
 culties have always had a peculiar effect upon my 
 personal character; to face them, and fight them out 
 with one object in view to die or to win, I left New 
 York right after Christmas of 1903, in the midst of 
 an unusually severe winter, rather a wanderer; but 
 determined to ramble among the American people 
 and learn the language by ear, which proved in my 
 case, and I believe, it is in every case, to be the 
 best school for learning the correct pronunciation 
 of any language you might desire to speak, and be 
 not laughable when you address the natives of that 
 language. 
 
 Where should I direct my wandering steps, it was 
 the all important question, under my consideration 
 in the first place. Boston: I had been scouring the 
 ground before, and from a thorough-going I was 
 convinped that to begin in a place where the most 
 superstitious, if not fanatics, Greeks are situated, 
 at all appearances it should be a wonderful failure 
 without any dose of wisdom in it; while I was not 
 able to take my stand before the people, whose 
 sympathies I needed in judging my purposes and my 
 eflforts. In the great wild West, way out there, 
 where some of the best easterners by leaving their 
 homes and their comforts therein, and enduring all 
 the hardships of pioneering life they succeeded at 
 last to put a solid foundation of a new and perma- 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 95 
 
 nent civilization astonishingly wonderful not only in 
 the development of this great land of liberty but 
 revolutionizing the whole commercial and social sys- 
 tem of the world. 
 
 Who hath known the mind of the Lord? We 
 have been taught, that His purpose is to glorify 
 Himself through human agency, and we know that 
 all the great movements in history were originated 
 in an insignificant way by insignificant persons at the 
 beginning. Who could say, at the time, when the 
 daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at 
 the river, and there she drew out of the water an 
 ark with a child in it, that that child would be the 
 chosen one of God to deliver his people from the 
 Egyptian bondage? Or, when, a poor carpenter with 
 his wife went up from Galilee, out of the city of 
 Nazareth, into Judea in a small village of Bethlehem, 
 and Mary brought forth her first-born son, and 
 wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in 
 a manger, because there was no room for them in 
 the inn; that that baby was the King of Kings, Christ 
 the Lord and Saviour of all mankind? 
 
 That, humble fishermen would be the heralds of 
 glad tidings, to those who accept Christ as their 
 Saviour? That an altruist monk should leave his 
 monastery, thus violating his vows to Pope and the 
 church, to be the mouthpiece of the Truths of Christ's 
 Gospel, and become the father of a Reformation that 
 brought down the Romish pride, for all time and 
 raised the banner of personal liberty in Him who is 
 the Only One to save every soul that cometh unto 
 
96 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 Him without the necessity of a priest? That such 
 men as John Wesley, Moody, and a number of others, 
 to accomplish great things for the advancement of 
 God's kingdom? And the greatest religjous living 
 man, General William Booth, who, with his ingenious 
 and prototype system, is doing more for God and 
 humanity, than all religious bodies put together? 
 Their beginning was insignificant. 
 
 These names, a few of the many, I thought to 
 mention for the encouragement of those who always 
 try to find some excuse, for not doing all they can, 
 to realize that for which they every day pray, "Thy 
 Kingdom come." As for me, I know, that there is 
 nothing impossible with Jesus, and it is only accord- 
 ing to our faith, and the work which we put in it, 
 that we reap the results of our efforts. 
 
 When I left New York, I made a short stop-over 
 at New Jersey, and one snowy morning I went to the 
 R.. R. station and purchased my ticket for Athens, 
 Ohio, because, in studying geography, I noticed that 
 there are quite a number of towns in the United 
 States by the name of Athens, and I was very de- 
 sirous to visit the Athens, Ohio, and see if there 
 was any Acropolis or monuments to compare with 
 the Athens, Greece. The train arrived at Athens, 
 Ohio, R. R. station just on time, not to miss my. 
 dinner at a nearby restaurant, where I inquired 
 if there were any Greek people in the town. A 
 very gentle young lady, waiting on the table gave 
 me instructions to find a candy store kept by a 
 Greek, where she took her ice cream. I found the 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 97 
 
 place and the Greek who was a real good natufed 
 middle-aged man and his family living on the floor 
 above the store. He received me kindly and after 
 a short conversation he said he thought I could make 
 a suitable help for him and he offered me the job 
 without asking any questions as to my identification. 
 I had no thought of staying at that place and de- 
 clined the offer. By the same Greek I was glad to 
 learn that Athens, Ohio, though there is no Acrop- 
 olis and no Socrates there; yet, she is a nice little 
 college town and the Greek was doing a rushing 
 business with the students. The next train was for 
 St. Louis, Missouri, and I was very anxious to see 
 the Mississippi river, so I went on that train. The 
 great bridge on the Mississippi river and the Union 
 station at St: Louis are two buildings that could 
 make honor to any city in the world. I left my 
 luggage at the parcel-room and started out to find a 
 hotel, where I could have the best accommoda- 
 tions for the smallest amount of money. When I 
 located myself the best that I could, the next thing 
 I thought to look around for a job, as I liked to 
 stay in St. Louis till the opening of the World's Fair 
 in the year 1904. I bought a newspaper : I could then 
 read some English, but speak very little yet. The 
 advertisement which attracted my attention was a 
 short one "Wanted young man willing to work, ap- 
 ply, at given number and street." It was Saturday 
 yet I was anxious and willing to work, so, I W|ent to 
 answer the ad. By asking in every corner some man 
 in uniform, not knowing at the time if they were 
 
98 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 policemen or conductors in the electric cars, I find 
 the street and presently I saw fiie number above 
 the door of a great big livery stable. I looked over 
 the newspaper, and the number was correct. I was 
 not prepared for the surprise and for a moment I 
 hesitated to enter. The thoughts came to me by 
 bunches: for the first time in my life I was looking 
 for an honest work to make an honest living, and 
 the first place, God's Providence, brought me, was 
 a stable; and what a big stable that was. I never 
 knew anything about stables and horses: what could 
 I do there? Instantly my feet began to move back- 
 wards when a thought came as a lightning: what do 
 you care if it is a stable, or a dowager's palace? It 
 is work that you want, and it is much more honor- 
 able to work in a stable and be right with God, than 
 to live in the luxuries as a High Priest and be an 
 hypocrite. Labor, it has always been an object of 
 my admiration, though, labor is set forth as a part 
 of the primeval curse, "in the sweat of thy face thou 
 shalt eat bread" and doubtless there is a view of 
 labor which exhibits in it reality as a heavy, some- 
 times a crueling burden. But labor is by no means 
 exclusively an evil, nor is its prosecution a dishonor. 
 These impressions, false though they are, have 
 wrought a vast and complicated amount of harm to 
 men, especially to the industrious classes, causing 
 these classes, that is, the great majority of our fel- 
 low-creatures, to be regarded, and consequently to 
 be treated even in Christian lands, as a parish caste, 
 as hereditary "hewers of wood and drawers of water" 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 99 
 
 doomed by Providence, if not primarily by the Cre- 
 ator himself, to a low and degrading yoke, and ut- 
 terly incapable of entertaining lofty sentiments, or 
 rising to a higher position; to be restrained there- 
 fore in every manifestation of impatience lest they 
 should temporarily gain the upper hand, and lay 
 waste the fair fields of civilization; and to be kept 
 under for the safety of society, if not for their own 
 safety, by social burdens and the depressing influ- 
 ences of disregard and contempt. 
 
 A better feeling, however, regarding labor and 
 laborers, is beginning to prevail: these motions, 
 which breathe the very spirit of slavery whence they 
 are borrowed, are in a word dishonored, while they 
 are gradually losing their hold on the heart, and 
 their influence on the life. Individuals arising from 
 time to time from the lowest levels of social life to 
 take, occupy, and adorn its loftiest posts, have ir- 
 resistibly shown that there is no depression in 
 society which the favors of God may not reach. 
 Especially has a wider and more humane spirit begun 
 to prevail since man has learned more accurately to 
 know, and more powerfully to feel, the genius and 
 the spirit of the Gospel, whose originator was a car- 
 penter's son, and whose heralds were 'Galilean fisher- 
 men. Reason and experience too, in this as in all 
 cases, have come to revealed truth, tending forcibly 
 to show that labor, if under certain circumstances it 
 has a curse to inflict, has also many priceless bless- 
 ings to bestow. Yet, when it fell to my lot, to sub- 
 mit myself in that class and be a laborer and earn, my 
 
loo CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 bread by the sweat of my brow, it was a critical mo- 
 ment to decide upon. And just at this moment a 
 man of small stature came out of the stable, and 
 as I looked suspiciously, he asked me if I wanted 
 anything. I want this job said I, showing to him 
 the ad in the paper. With a few sharp glances at 
 me standing now like a marble; all right, he said; 
 you just put on your working clothes and come here 
 on Monday morning at 5 a. m., and we will have 
 something for you to do. I left him and on my way 
 back home I entered the first clothing store and 
 purchased an outfit of working-man's clothes. The 
 next day was Sunday and I spent the day in my room, 
 praying that God would sustain me in my new 
 career. At night I had very little sleep, making my 
 plans for the future, or building my castles in the 
 air, and early Monday morning I was at the stable 
 before 5 a. m. Soon the little man appeared and 
 after the customary ceremony in taking my name 
 and address, he led the way into the iimer part of 
 the stable in front of a huge heap of horse manure. 
 There, he says, you just shovel that out of the 
 window, and handing to me a big fork, for the opera- 
 tion, he disappeared. 
 
 There are certain happenings in our lives indelibly 
 written in our memory, which cannot be effaced by 
 the stream of time, and one week's experience in this 
 stable was sufficient to engrave the deepest lines in 
 my heart of sympathy and mercy for sinful, suffering 
 humanity. It has been said in the old Greek mythol- 
 ogy that the greatest achievement of Hercules was 
 
Rev. M. Golden 
 Captain of the Salvation Army 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER loi 
 
 when he undertook to clean the stable of the king 
 Augeus at Argos. But should Hercules lived in this 
 stable for one week, I doubt that his name would 
 ever appear in the list of demigods. 
 
 It is beyond the limits of self respect to even at- 
 tempt a brief account of all that took place in that 
 stable, but sufficiei *■ to say that I went in there one 
 individual and by S. 'urday I came out ten thousand 
 strong. And I had to out up in St. Louis one more 
 week in a bath house, with much work and expense 
 to get back into my one individual, and hasten my 
 wandering steps towards Chicago, with a stop-over 
 at Springfield, Illinois, where I had references to 
 meet a gentleman, professor of the Greek language 
 in one of the colleges there. When I arrived at the 
 house of the dear professor, he, began to speak to 
 me from a book, in an exameter homerean tone, and 
 I understood about as much as the faithful who goes 
 to church and the priest reads the mass in Latin. 
 At Springfield I lost my satchel and with it my Greek 
 documents, which might have been very interesting 
 to the reader, yet, I hope in my next publication to. 
 have reproductions of those documents from the 
 original, which I can easily obtain from Athens. 
 
 Chicago is my next stop. The Babylon of the 
 West. Last week of January, 1904, the weather 12 
 degrees below zero. All the idles of Chicago hired 
 by the city hall could not keep control of the snow 
 on the streets. I located myself in a furnished room 
 on Wabash Avenue, and bought a paper to find a 
 job, but my experience in the stable at St. Louis, 
 
I02 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 took away from me all the courage to select any kind 
 of work from the paper, yet I was very anxious to 
 settle for a while in Chicago, in that third cosmo- 
 politan city of the world, London and New York 
 being respectively first and second. 
 
 Chicago offers great opportunity to a student of 
 religious, industrial and social conditions, and when, 
 by chance, I secured employment in a leading ware- 
 house, a very good paying position, under the cir- 
 cumstances, I devoted all my spare time visiting the 
 Greek quarters, incognito, and studying everything 
 that came within my observation, and attending all 
 kinds of public meetings of various denominations 
 and societies, which proved a great help to me in 
 learning the proper pronunciation of the English 
 words, in fact for five years I did not speak five times 
 in the Greek language. 
 
 One morning I read in the paper the following 
 announcement : "The Knights Templar of the United 
 States have made their plans to celebrate the 29th 
 triennial conclave of Knights Templar to be held in 
 San Francisco, Cal., September 4 to 9. The occa- 
 sion will be of universal character, representatives 
 from all the world; and Great Britain will send to 
 this imposing ceremony the highest officials that 
 control the affairs of the chivalric order of Freemas- 
 onry in the British Isles. The Earl of Euston, most 
 eminent and supreme grand master of great priory 
 of England and Wales and the dependencies of the 
 British crown, were coming with credentials to rep- 
 resent Edward VII, the king of England." I was 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 103 
 
 looking forward to my visit to California, since I 
 left New York, but I never expected the time for 
 me to go there would come so soon as it did. I was 
 longing to see a great gathering of Freemasons, of 
 this class of men, that, in every country represents 
 the highest ideals of good citizenship. 
 
 With a few days preliminary preparations, I bade 
 good-bye to my employer, and well supplied with 
 recommendations from some influential friends and 
 acquaintances which I had made in Chicago, I saw 
 myself off to California, on the forenoon train, the 
 25th of June, 1904. 
 
 The trip was uneventful, excepting the unbearable 
 heat and dust, especially going through the States of 
 Oklahoma, Arizona and New Mexico, and the num- 
 ber of Indians, which, for the first time in my life 
 I beheld in their own skin living and moving con- 
 tented as though they still were the dominating race 
 on the continent, with their square faces painted in 
 various colors, wrapped in their blankets, and bare- 
 footed, their feet being very much like those of a 
 mud turtle, they were the real thing. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Honorable Submission 
 
 THERE was a time when the Eastern part of 
 the United States looked upon San Francisco 
 as the coming New York of the Pacific Coast, but 
 since the disastrous earthquake in the year 1906, the 
 stream of progress as a great commercial center has 
 been turned rather towards the Northern Pacific 
 Coast, yet San Francisco with its great harbor, the 
 ever increasing commercial developments and num- 
 ber of other advantages, still is a magnificent attrac- 
 tion to the homeseeker, who for the last few years 
 has been very sceptical in his preference on account 
 of existing unfavorable conditions regarding the city's 
 government which is the prey of dishonest politicians. 
 For this and many other reasons I should never make 
 my home within the limits of the city of San Fran- 
 cisco. There are beautiful localities within short dis- 
 tances, desirable in every respect and beyond the claws 
 of the city hall of San Francisco. 
 
 Mount Tamalpais, I believe, is a most pleasant 
 location for the lovers of nature. Words fail, and it 
 is beyond the ability of my pen, to even attempt 
 to describe, the beauties which nature has bestowed 
 upon the Mount of Tamalpais. Situated just across 
 the bay of San Francisco, by the way of Socialito, 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 105 
 
 on the train to Mill Valley and whence on the crook- 
 edest railroad in the world, climbing 2000 feet above 
 the tide of water, we reach the lower top of the 
 mountain, and there we find accommodations to en- 
 tertain kings and princesses, and the most eccentric 
 Yankee. Yet, I am assured, that scarcely one-tenth 
 of the visitors to California, have ever had the ex- 
 ceptional privilege to spend 24 hours, on the top 
 of Motmt Tamalpais, and thereafter all through their 
 lives enjoy the most wonderful recollection in all 
 God's creation. 
 
 The Alps in Europe are too stupendous to be 
 compared with this majestically magnificent mount 
 of Tamalpais. The Himalaya in Asia are too brutish 
 to be considered as a rival of this gentle and illus- 
 trious sky-scraper. The Olympus and Parnassus of 
 Greece are out of season to be paralleled with this 
 up-to-date marvelous throne of their Majesties the 
 Kings of America. There is the Tamalpais Hotel, a 
 real palace, where the guests can rest and from the 
 verandas or the windows of their own rooms observe 
 the animating sights on the left hand sidte the snow- 
 covered top-heads of the mountains and following to 
 the right look down upon the valleys and behold the 
 myriads of orange and lemon and all the fruit-bear- 
 ing trees blooming all the year around and decorated 
 like brides in their wedding procession, not only for 
 a few moments, till the law ties the knot, but forever 
 as long as the life-giving climate of beautiful Cali- 
 fornia lasts and time shall be no more. 
 
 When I went up to the Mountain, looking for 
 
io6 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 employment, because I wanted to locate myself in 
 such a place, if I could, till the celebration of the 
 Knights Templar was over, I was surprised to find 
 that the General Manager of the Hotel and the R. R. 
 Station was a lady, of a striking majestical appear- 
 ance, she was the controlling power of the whole 
 business on Mount Tamalpais, and she was not a 
 suffragette either. But she was a loving mother of 
 two beautiful children, a typical Yankee girl, well up 
 in her teens, supervising over the chambermaids, and 
 variously assisting her mother, and an active boy of 
 sixteen, the good-fellow of everybody, and especially 
 to the Chinamen employed in the kitchen. Mr. John- 
 son was the husband and father of this happy family, 
 and he occupied the position of butler of the house, 
 receiving orders from his beloved wife. 
 
 I presented my credentials to Mrs. Johnson and 
 she, being satisfied, was very kind to give me the 
 charge of two tables to wait upon in the dining room. 
 It seemed as though I made good as a waiter, judg- 
 ing by the coins which the customers, began to for- 
 get, beneath their plates, in leaving the table, some 
 call it tips, I called it real money. 
 
 September was well at hand, one day old, and 
 Mrs. Johnson was very anxious to have the premises 
 well decorated, and a big arch should be erected at 
 the entrance, with the sign, "WELCOME," to 
 Knights Templar, as news came from San Francisco, 
 that the Knights were already in possession of the 
 Golden Gate. Mrs. Johnson was almost in despair, 
 unable to find someone among that great army of 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 107 
 
 employees, to have any artistic ideas of decorating or 
 even to make a few flower designs and put up the 
 arch out of some green foliage. We were all green, 
 in that respect. But as I always find myself at hand, 
 wherever help is to be rendered, I offered my serv- 
 ices, and by what I could remember from my friend 
 Jack, in New York, how he could decorate every- 
 thing to a good taste, I have been able to put up 
 a nice decoration and the third of September, 1904, 
 the flags of all nations were waving and everything 
 was ready for the reception of the Knights Templar. 
 Mrs. Johnson was pleased to the extent of present- 
 ing me with an extra three dollars and relieving me 
 from the dining room, she appointed me in charge 
 of the pavilion, an out-doors building, where the 
 Knights Templar would privately entertain their 
 families and lady friends. In this position I was 
 enabled to see more of the high American life than 
 I ever dreamed of before. The English Lord, and 
 the Parisien Dame de Honor, were eclipsed as they 
 would look like pygmies by the side of the sunshin- 
 ing, bright-hearted American gentlemen, and the 
 sweet and graceful demigoddess American lady. But 
 my enthusiasm reached its zenith when a gentleman 
 from Pittsburg, in company with his ladies, after an 
 enjojrable dinner, at the pavilion, he left under his 
 plate a shining five dollar gold piece; at the sight 
 of the unexpected I made a sign to which the gentle- 
 man was obliged to respond, and that settled it, 
 there was no mistake about it, the man and I were 
 brothers and the coin was intended as my tip. And 
 
io8 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 afterwards the incident occurred repeatedly during 
 the celebration of Knights Templar in San Fran- 
 cisco. 
 
 Now, if everything in this world was just a pro- 
 cession like that of Knights Templar in San Fran- 
 cisco, and everybody was happy as the people I have 
 seen on Mount Tamalpais, then there would be no 
 sorrow, and there woud be no pain; in fact this 
 world would be the paradise on earth. But, alas! 
 regretful as it may be, yet it is only the simple truth, 
 that it is only the minority that are real happy, while 
 the vast majority of men and women and children in 
 this world are just a mass of suffering himianity, 
 and if the investigations of religious societies, sociol- 
 ogists, and psychologists, are true, the cause of all 
 misery in this world is misconduct or misfortune, 
 which in one word is, sin, that brings misery. And 
 there is where my purpose in life begins. I am out 
 against sin. But to fight sin, it is absolutely neces- 
 sary to be a soldier of the man who gave his life for 
 the salvation of all mankind. 
 
 President Emeritus Eliot of Harvard University, 
 a man of colossal thought-machine, man, who con- 
 trols the unprejudiced intellectual minds of America, 
 in his address on "The Religion of the Future," is 
 quoted as saying: "I venture to add that I am not 
 at the hold of any proud world — whatever; second, 
 that such little part of the world as I am best ac- 
 quainted with loves the Lowly Nazarene — and does 
 not hate Him; thirdly, that I have met during my 
 life most of the sorrows which are accounted heav- 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 109 
 
 iest; fourth, that Jesus will be in the religioii of the 
 future, not less, but more, than in the Christianity 
 of the past." All efforts , without Jesus, trying to 
 better the world, shall fail. It is and will be the 
 opinion of all sane minds for many generations yet 
 to come. This was my opinion and the only impos- 
 ing motive that brought me down on my knees on 
 the 14th of October, 1904, in a poorly furnished hall 
 where the Salvation Army had the Sunday night's 
 meeting. I gave my heart to Jesus, for life and for 
 eternity, to be his and his alone. And I knew, there 
 and then, that I was honorably converted. 
 
 To make the surrender complete I offered my 
 services to the Salvation Army, that I should use 
 all I had, my time and my talent, to uplift the down- 
 fallen humanity and help to make this world better. 
 Major Harris Connett and Adjutant Allison Coe, 
 were the officers in charge of the Los Angeles Salva- 
 tion Army and they received me into their ranks and 
 for ten months I was engaged in this wonderful or- 
 ganization, visiting the sick, praying in the saloons, 
 in the slums and everywhere doing all that I could 
 to promote the cause of Jesus in bringing souls into 
 his fold. But nothing gave me so great pleasure as 
 the poor children of Los Angeles at Christmas time 
 when I was dressed in the Santa Claus clothing dis- 
 tributing presents to them. I never felt happier in 
 all my Ufe even in the best days as a High Priest. 
 
 After passing successfully my preparatory studies 
 in Los Angeles, word came from the Headquarters 
 that they wanted me in the college Training Home, 
 
no CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 in Chicago, to take the course of officership; and 
 the 15th of August, 1905, finds me sweeping the 
 back yard at the Training Home, West Adams St., 
 Chicago, lUinois. 
 
 Were it possible for every man and woman who 
 pretends to be a minister of Jesus, to pass six months 
 in any of the Training Colleges of the Salvation 
 Army, then there should be fewer ministers, but far 
 more useful, in the betterment of the world, than 
 many of them that are under the present conditions. 
 
 It is the most psychological system, in these Train- 
 ing Colleges that brings out all the virtues that every 
 heart possesses and every bit of iniquity that may be 
 hidden in the personal character of the man or woman 
 who willingly denies himself or herself of all pros- 
 pects and pleasures in this world just for the only 
 purpose to live and love and serve the suffering 
 humanity. There are exceptions to the rule among 
 the officers of the Salvation Army, once in a great 
 while some one will prove unworthy to the cause, but 
 these exceptions are common in every human insti- 
 tution, and they are so few in the Salvation Army 
 that fully justifies the public confidence upon this 
 marvelously developing great movement. 
 
 I went through the theoretical and practical work 
 for which I could make a whole volume of the ex- 
 periences in the slums of Chicago, where I had to 
 reprove a policeman, whom I found in a saloon 
 drinking in full uniform, while in the back room there 
 was a girl not over fifteen years old, in the company 
 of a most reckless middle-aged man, both exceedingly 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER iii 
 
 intoxicated and still drinking. I dismissed the man, 
 and sent the girl to the rescue home, where she would 
 be taken care of. 
 
 The 17th of January, 1906, I received my diploma 
 as an active member of the National First Aid As- 
 sociation of America, and my commission as a Cap- 
 tain in the Salvation Army, and I was appointed in 
 charge of No. 4 in Chicago. I went to my quarters 
 and there was not kindling wood enough to start a 
 fire, and no coal; and the weather 14 degrees below 
 zero, half the glass panes of the windows broken, 
 and everything in the house frozen, and the Corps 
 indebted to the extent of 175 dollars, that I was ex- 
 pected to pay. You have to put yourself in a po- 
 sition of this kind in order to appreciate the circum- 
 stances under which I was placed. Yet, when every- 
 thing seems dark, and there is no visible way out of 
 the difficulty, it is then that with Jesus on our side, 
 we shall always find some way. The first consider- 
 ation in a missionary work should be to get souls 
 converted to God. With much prayer and great 
 faith upon the Almighty, I began my work, and 
 when the Spirit spread all round that community and 
 the sinners began to floCk into the fold of Jesus, 
 there was a change in a very short time. The old 
 debt was paid, and we had comfortable quarters 
 to lay our heads; and the roll-call of the Corps in- 
 creased, and God was glorified, and there is a Corps, 
 till this day, in Chicago, which they call the big 4 
 of the Salvation Army. 
 
 The San Francisco disaster came and the Salva- 
 
112 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 tion Army called me into its relieving department to 
 help the sufferers. After which they appointed me 
 assistant to the Illinois Division, where for two years 
 I made a deeper and more thorough study of the 
 various departments in operation. 
 
 In April, 1908, I visited England with the desire 
 to study closer and more extensively the methods, 
 and see for myself the great works which the Salva- 
 tion Army has accomplished in the British Isles. 
 
 On my return to the United States I was ap- 
 pointed divisional solicitor for the Northern New 
 England, where, splendid success was the result of 
 my efforts, and there was a great field to work in 
 and every opportunity to do good. 
 
 But in searching my heart's ambition I find that it 
 was high time for me to turn all my energies to- 
 ward the people for whose Salvation I was ordained 
 a High Priest in the Church, and although the Church 
 failed in its mission, yet, to uplift my people is still 
 the aim of my life. 
 
 After much thought and due consideration of my 
 obligations to the Salvation Army, I came to the 
 conclusion that in view of the fact that following 
 an unsuccessful correspondence with the Salvation 
 Army, the National Headquarters refused to grant 
 me a leave of absence, and insisted that I should go 
 back West, while I knew that the field where I was 
 called to fight the battle of my life was right here 
 in New England, the best thing for me to do re- 
 mained to send in my resignation, and I did so, thus 
 thrusting myself entirely upon the hands of God. 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 113 
 
 And though as yet I have received no reply from 
 the National Headquarters, my resignation is final, 
 and now I am free, and my work unmolested of all 
 denominational differences, dogmas and doctrines, 
 which in the light of the Ecclesiastical history has 
 always been the fatal cause of failure, in the 
 Churches, to accomplish their mission in the Salva- 
 tion of the world. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Practical Effects of Practical 
 Truth 
 
 THE necessity of faith, as a primary element 
 in all acceptable religious exercises, has al- 
 ready been noticed. A feeling of entire dependence 
 upon God for spiritual mercy is the only right feel- 
 ing, because it is the only true feeling. It is neces- 
 sary, according to the foregoing view of the subject, 
 in order to offer acceptable prayer, that man should 
 possess a spirit of faith and dependence upon Christ. 
 The principle upon which Christ acted in relation to 
 this subject, as well as His instruction concerning the 
 duty of prayer, fully confirm the preceding thoughts. 
 He seldom performed an act of mercy, by miracle 
 or otherwise, unless those who received the mercy 
 could see the hand of God in the blessing: — "If thou 
 canst believe, thou mayest be cleansed," was His 
 habitual sentiment. As if He had said — ^Your desire 
 for the blessing is manifest by your urgent request; 
 now, if you can have faith to see God in the blessing, 
 so that He will be honored and praised for conferring 
 it, I will grant it; but if you have no faith, you can 
 receive no favor. 
 
 This little book could easily occupy thrice as large 
 a size as its present volume, had I taken into ac- 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 115 
 
 count all the blessings which God has bestowed 
 upon my faithful prayers and upon His children, 
 using me as an instrument of His hand. But I must 
 content myself by referring to only two cases, which 
 had had exceptional significance and gratifying joy 
 not only to my own heart, but to every Christian 
 worker. 
 
 With the individuals spoken of I am well ac- 
 quainted, having frequently conversed with them all 
 on the subjects of which I shall speak. Their words 
 in these cases may not have been exactly remem- 
 bered, but the sense is truly given. 
 
 The first case, is a story, told all by itself, and the 
 second case, is a letter of a dear girl, whose mother 
 was a down to the bone Roman Catholic. The 
 daughter accidentally came to our meeting and gave 
 her heart to Jesus. The mother thinking that the 
 worldly pleasures might drive her newly converted 
 daughter away from Jesus, and being very anxious 
 to get her daughter back into the Catholic parish, 
 she gave a party to all the young people from the 
 same parish. And there was plenty of song and 
 dance, but the daughter did not show up. The 
 mother with a number of the guests went into the 
 daughter's room where the girl in seclusion was 
 reading her Bible; the young people almost carry- 
 ing her into the reception hall, sat her upon the stool 
 in front of the piano, earnestly asking her to play 
 for them while they were dancing. But, the girl, 
 lifting up to God her angelic heart and voice, she 
 began to play and sing, softly "Nearer My God To 
 
ii6 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 Thee," the tears streaming down her cheeks; they 
 were tears of joy for the saved girl, but the young 
 people could not stand it and they ran away, while 
 the converted girl bended on her knees in prayer for 
 them, and her own mother's salvation. 
 
 Case I. — For love of the Christ: — ^John Davis was 
 the only child of a Chicago banker. The wealth and 
 social prominence of his father had surrounded him 
 with every comfort and luxury, and his growth from 
 boyhood to incipient manhood had been tenderly 
 watched over by his fond parents. 
 
 All the hopes of his parents were centered in their 
 only child. Mr. Davis looked forward to the time 
 when John would become his partner, and that his 
 son might be fitted in every way, engaged the best 
 tutors procurable to attend to his education. John 
 had graduated with honors after four years of col- 
 lege work, which was marked by the thorough and 
 earnest appUcation on his part. His father watched 
 his progress with growing pride and with fullest con- 
 fidence in his son's ability, arranged to take him into 
 partnership at the proper time. 
 
 Seemingly the future for John was one of brilliant 
 promise. But John did not show an eager anticipa- 
 tion for the future as planned for him. A life devoted 
 to business was to him a selfish one. Something 
 within him was insistently calling him to a higher 
 vocation; although apparently acquiescing to his 
 father's plans, the prospect daily became more and 
 more distasteful to him. 
 
 From his mother, a woman of singular devout- 
 
ii8 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 sponded Mr. Davis, "you may begin at once if you 
 so desire. Your mother and I thought, however, 
 that you were entitled to a vacation after your col- 
 lege work. However we can use you at the bank 
 the moment you are ready," laughed Mr. Davis. 
 
 "That is just what I desire to talk over with you, 
 father," returned John. "For weeks I have felt that 
 the future you have designed for me is too narrow 
 — too selfish. With my Master's Call sounding in 
 my ears, the thought of devoting my life to any busi- 
 ness, however high its position in the eyes of the 
 world, is intolerably repugnant. 
 
 "I know how firmly your heart has been set upon 
 my joining you in business, and I cannot tell you 
 how hard it is for me to disappoint you at this late 
 hour, but Christ has called me to preach to His 
 people. I feel and know that only in so doing shall I 
 find true happiness and contentment. 
 
 "You surely, father, will not oppose my doing 
 that which every fibre of my body tells me is my 
 duty." 
 
 The eyes of Mrs. Davis filled with glad tears, and 
 a prayer for Divine guidance for her son went up 
 from her heart; but annoyance and displeasure 
 plainly showed -n Mr. Davis' face. At length he 
 said: 
 
 "I had thought it definitely settled that you were 
 to assist me, and on the strength of that belief I 
 have made several important changes in my business 
 with the view of affording a proper position for you. 
 Your decision declining to accept it will inconveni- 
 ence me not a little. 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 119 
 
 "With all due consideration for your religious be- 
 liefs, I feel it my duty as your father, John, to ex- 
 press my disappointment of the profession you at 
 present seem inclined to adopt. However you are 
 entering man's estate, and it is for you to decide as 
 to your career. I shall, however, insist upon one 
 thing: that you take a good vacation before making 
 your final decision. 
 
 "If, upon your return you are of the same mind, 
 I shall not oppose you, although to speak frankly, 
 John, I am not a little disappointed. 
 
 "Anyway a good western trip will greatly bene- 
 fit you, and I shall not be at all surprised if on your 
 return your conception of your duty has undergone 
 important modifications." As if signifying that he 
 desired to discuss the subject no farther, Mr. Davis 
 rose and left the room. 
 
 Keenly feeling his father's disappointment and 
 displeasure, John instinctively turned to his mother 
 for sympathy. Mrs. Davis stepped to his side and 
 with a fond caress said: 
 
 "Thank God you have made this choice; I shall 
 do all in my power to help you." 
 
 "Thank you, mother dear. I believe you under- 
 stand me, and know how sincere is my desire to do 
 what I can for my fellow men. 
 
 "I do so long to lead some of them to Christ; for 
 many are wandering in darkness, just waiting for 
 some one to reach them a helping hand. 
 
 "In deference to father's wishes I shall take a 
 vacation; though it can by no possibility alter my 
 
I20 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 determination. On my return I shall begin active 
 work without delay. 
 
 "I have education enough to preach the simple 
 truths of God's love. I wish to preach to sinners, not 
 to saints. I shall ask no salary and have no denomina- 
 tion, ^y Church will be Christ." 
 
 After tenderly embracing his mother, during 
 which the souls of mother and son united in a prayer 
 to the Most High, John bade her "Good night" and 
 retired. 
 
 The following week found John on his way to 
 South Dakota, his plan being to make his first stop 
 of any length at Aberdeen. 
 
 He arrived there at night and the following morn- 
 ing mounted his bicycle for a trip through the sur- 
 rounding country. 
 
 It was a new world to him. His first thought 
 was: how splendid the roads were for wheeling, they 
 seemed even better than the paved streets of the 
 city. 
 
 He cast his eyes over his surroundings. On all 
 sides was the vast expanse of prairie, ending only in 
 the horizon — ^the fields of grass and grain, moving 
 in the wind like the waves of the sea; overhead the 
 blue sky, stretching out in a dome unbroken by hill 
 or forest. The sun above him seemed to shine with 
 a brighter splendor than he had before known. 
 
 The beauties of nature filled the soul of this city- 
 bred youth with wonder and admiration. 
 
 He rode on and on. 
 
 At one moment the joyous song of a lark capti- 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 121 
 
 vated him; at another, the capering of some colts, 
 or a sleek herd of cattle quietly grazing in a nearby 
 pasture attracted his attention; or a colony of prairie 
 gophers which dived excitedly into their burrows at 
 his approach, amused him with their antics. 
 
 At last he began to wonder how far he had gone. 
 
 Seeing nearby a large, well kept farm-house, he 
 rode up to it, to procure such rest and refreshment 
 as it might afford him, before undertaking his long 
 ride back to town. 
 
 His knock at the door was answered by a beauti- 
 ful girl, apparently about fifteen years of age. John 
 explained his errand to her, and requested such 
 courtesies as could be granted without putting the 
 people of the house to undue inconvenience. 
 
 The girl expressed her regrets that her parents were 
 away in town, but saying that she expected them home 
 very soon, she invited him in, and ushered him into 
 a cool, spacious sitting-room. 
 
 Mutual introductions followed and John learned 
 that the name of his fair young hostess was Lily 
 Long, "but," said she, with a slight blush, "father 
 calls me the Queen of the Prairie." 
 
 They visited together for some little time, until Lily, 
 exclaiming that her father and mother were coming, 
 went out to greet them. 
 
 Left to himself, John glanced around him. 
 
 An old>-fashioned piano stood in one corner of the 
 room. He noted also an ample, well filled book-case 
 at one end of the room. 
 
 "Music, books, and Prairie Queen. If this is a 
 
122 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 typical example of country life, I must say that I 
 rather like it." 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Long greeted him heartily and gave 
 him a cordial invitation to stay to dinner — an invita- 
 tion which he gratefully accepted. 
 
 And what a dinner it was; vegetables fresh gath- 
 ered from the garden in abundance; fried chicken 
 prepared as only a farmer's wife can prepare it; and 
 the countless other good things which go to make 
 dinner on the farm. To this dinner John brought an 
 appetite sharpened by his brisk morning ride; he did 
 full justice to the tempting viands, nor could he re- 
 member so thoroughly enjoying a dinner before. 
 
 Everything on the farm was so clean and well 
 arranged that John began to wish he could board 
 there instead of in town during the remainder of his 
 visit; so when they had adjourned to the sitting-room, 
 he informed Mr. Long of his wish, and asked if it 
 were possible. 
 
 "But before you answer me," he added, "I should 
 like to make myself better known to you." 
 
 Then he told them of his father and mother, of his 
 own youth, and of his college life. A natural question 
 on the part of Mr. Long as to what brought him so- 
 far West led to an explanation from John, who 
 presently found himself telling his new-found friends 
 his future plans and ambitions. 
 
 "My boy," said Mr. Long, reaching out his hand, 
 "I honor you for your choice. You are welcome to 
 share our home as long as you care to stay." 
 
 Mrs. Long wiped her eyes as she pressed John to 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 123 
 
 stay with them, for she thought of her own son whom 
 God had called home. 
 
 Lily must have been thinking of him too, for she 
 said: "I am glad you are going to stay, for then 
 I can play you are my brother." 
 
 "I certainly shall be proud to be your brother," 
 John answered gallantly. 
 
 That evening when the family gathered for pray- 
 ers, Lily took her seat at the old piano. Then John 
 realized why they called her "Queen," for never had 
 he heard such a magnificent voice, so sweet, so soft, 
 and so full of feeling. It seemed as though she car- 
 ried them nearer Heaven with her song. 
 
 Before John retired he wrote to his mother, tell- 
 ing her of the home he had found, and of "The 
 Queen of the Prairie." This rather amused Mrs. 
 Davis, for hitherto, John had had little to say in praise 
 of young ladies, although he was a favorite among 
 them. 
 
 The summer passed merrily on, and John's vacation 
 was drawing near its close, when one morning he 
 received a telegram telling him that his mother was 
 dangerously sick. The message filled him with anxi- 
 ous foreboding, and he quickly prepared to return 
 home at once. 
 
 Tears were on Mrs. Long's cheeks as she helped 
 him pack, for she had not realized before to what an 
 extent John had taken her own boy's place in her 
 heart. His own eyes were moist as he bade her 
 farewell, promising to return as soon as possible. 
 
 Mr. Long was ready with a team to drive him to 
 
124 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 town, and Lily was standing beside her father. She 
 raised a tear-stained face to him, and said: "Good- 
 bye, dear brother, we shall miss you." 
 
 John was not ashamed of his own tears, for this 
 little girl who called him "Brother," had grown dearer 
 to him than all the world. He stooped and reverently 
 kissed her snow white brow, then sprang in the buggy 
 and was gone. 
 
 When John reached home, his father met him at 
 the door. Mr. Davis' face was ghastly pale; he had 
 grown old with grief. 
 
 John's eyes asked the question his lips could not 
 frame. 
 
 "She still lives, but the doctor says she cannot 
 last long," said his father in answer to his son's mute 
 appeal. 
 
 "She is paralyzed. She will probably recognize 
 you, but she can neither speak nor move." 
 
 Without speaking John went to his mother's bed- 
 side, and saw that this was indeed true. His mother 
 lay as one dead. A faint spark of recognition showed 
 in her fast dimming eyes as he approached but other 
 signs of life there were none. 
 
 Overcome with grief, John stood motionless at the 
 bedside. 
 
 Then in agony he turned to Him who faileth not, 
 he fell on his knees and prayed reverently for his 
 mother's recovery. 
 
 His father tried to lead him away, but John con- 
 tinued to pray. 
 
 Then suddenly in that hour of anguish the grief- 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 125 
 
 stricken man found his God. Kneeling at his son's 
 side, he implored mercy from Him whom hitherto he 
 had denied. 
 
 All at once Mrs. Davis spoke, "My son." 
 
 The doctor hastened to her side. 
 
 In a moment he turned to Mr. Davis and said, 
 "She is better, she will live." 
 
 Dr. Gordon was an unbeUever, but at that moment 
 he realized that something had control of life, which 
 could act after science had failed. 
 
 He looked at John who had not yet risen from 
 his knees, at Mr. Davis who was pouring out thanks 
 to the God he had just found, then at the woman who 
 had been saved at the point of death. 
 
 Like a flash came to him the knowledge of a mer- 
 ciful Christ, and he joined the father and son in their 
 prayer of thanksgiving. 
 
 Mrs. Davis rapidly recovered her health, and John 
 soon entered upon his life work. He received hearty 
 encouragement from his father this time, for Mr. 
 Davis had learned the Truth and found his God 
 at the bedside of his dying wife in such a way as 
 to leave no place in his heart for opposition to work 
 in His service. 
 
 John's work was among the poor. He visited 
 from house to house, preaching and praying, and ex- 
 tending material help when such help was most 
 needed. 
 
 His sincerity and earnestness were the means of 
 bringing light into many darkened lives, and the mes- 
 sage of Christ crucified was eagerly received in re- 
 sponse to his pleadings. 
 
126 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 At one broken-down house he was met by a frail 
 woman who carried a half -starved child in her arms. 
 It was plainly apparent that in better days she had 
 been a handsome and refined woman. 
 
 John introduced himself and asked if he could be 
 of any help to her. 
 
 "No," she answered, "I am afraid you cannot aid 
 me. I am Rose Williams. My father is a man of 
 wealth. He is living today in luxury in a neighbor- 
 ing city, and if I would leave my husband I could be 
 clothed in silk and satin instead of these rags, but as 
 long as I stay with him, my father will not help me, 
 not even to keep me from starving. But I would 
 rather starve with my husband than leave him to kill 
 himself with drink, for I love him. 
 
 "Drink is the cause of all my poverty and misery. 
 Oh, if Ralph would only let it alone." 
 
 She ended her story in a frenzied cry which plainly 
 showed the tension to which she had been wrought, 
 but John's voice was low and soothing as he said, 
 "Suppose you and I pray for your husband. I have 
 great faith in the power of prayer. Shall we not 
 pray together?" 
 
 Together they knelt down, and offered up an ear- 
 nest prayer. Mrs. Williams spoke in low tones at 
 first, then with great excitement. At last she tried 
 to rise, but fell in a swoon on the floor. John placed 
 her on a couch in the room and sent at once for 
 Dr. Gordon. 
 
 After his examination, Dr. Gordon looked serious. 
 
 "This is going to be a bad case of brain fever. 
 
Rev. M. Golden 
 The Founder of the Greek-Amerikan-Christian-Association 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 127 
 
 John. From all appearances it has been hastened by 
 lack of proper food, but she may, pull through if she 
 has proper care." 
 
 John saw that the service of the physician was 
 only part of what was needed for the woman's safety. 
 
 He went out and procured bedding and food, and 
 his mother sent over one of her maids, also a trained 
 nurse. 
 
 Soon things were made comfortable for Mrs. Wil- 
 liams, but she could not rest. 
 
 In her delirium she called continually for Ralph 
 to come home and bring her something to eat. 
 
 And where was Ralph? For three days he had 
 been laying in a drunken stupor in the cellar of a 
 saloon, but this evening he had sobered somewhat, 
 and remorse for his cruel neglect of his wife and 
 children was finding a place in his heart. He recalled 
 the starving condition in which he had left them. 
 
 Perhaps for the first time he began to realize how 
 dearly his wife must love him to give up the pleasure 
 and luxury of her girlhood home for him, and there 
 in that room not fit for cattle, this man cried out in 
 his anguish, "Oh, God, protect my wife and forgive 
 me." 
 
 He started at once for home but as he neared 
 the house his heart was filled with fear, his head be- 
 gan to whirl. Where was Rose? Why was every- 
 thing so still? 
 
 He opened the door and was met by a little girl 
 dressed in white and with golden curls. 
 
 How beautiful she was ; she ran to him and cried, 
 "Papa has come, Papa has come !" 
 
128 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 Then he knew she was his own little daughter. 
 
 She led him to the bed on which lay his wife, but 
 the only words which greeted him were, "Ralph come 
 home and bring us something to eat." 
 
 He called her name but she heard him not. 
 
 Again he spoke: "Dear Rose, forgive me, forgive 
 me. 
 
 Dr. Gordon laid his hand on the shoulder of the 
 stricken man and said: "Ask your God to forgive 
 you, your wife knows not what you say." 
 
 He looked at the doctor a moment, then said in 
 a low voice, "I did that before I started home. God 
 has forgiven me and saved me. But tell me what 
 I can do for my poor wife." 
 
 It was indeed true, Ralph WilHams was a changed 
 man. The God who had heard the prayers of the 
 father and son at the dying woman's bedside, and 
 restored her to them, vouchsafed his mercy to the 
 starving wife who prayed for her drink-sodden hus- 
 band, and in answer to it the dulled conscience of 
 the husband was aroused. 
 
 Slowly Mrs. Williams improved, until one morning 
 she said : "Is this Heaven, and are Ralph and my chil- 
 dren here?" 
 
 "Yes, Rose," her husband replied, "Ralph and the 
 
 children are here, and henceforth I will do all I can 
 
 to make this home Heaven on earth." 
 
 ******* 
 
 The years rolling by saw John still fighting the 
 fight for his Maker. Out of the gratitude Ralph 
 Williams had felt for the Divine mercy shown him, 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 129 
 
 ■had sprung a determination to do all in his power 
 towards uplifting others. John eagerly accepted his 
 services, and thus the nucleus of a rapidly growing 
 power for good was formed. 
 
 As more and more came to know the meaning of 
 "Christ Crucified," they entered heart and soul into 
 the work of spreading the truth to others and soon a 
 mightly cohort of Christian workers spread over the 
 city. Individually and with them John labored night 
 and day sustained by his faith and enthusiasm. 
 
 The work of directing the efforts of so many, the 
 nightly vigil at the bedside of sick and dying, the 
 continual breathing of the vitiated air of the lower 
 quarters of the city, gradually sapped the strength of 
 John, who did not know the meaning of fatigue when 
 a call on the service of his Christ sounded. 
 
 At last an attack of nervous prostration made him 
 realize his position, and yielding to the importunities 
 of his parents and fellow-workers, he consented to 
 take a vacation. 
 
 Where should he go but to the broad, sunny prairies 
 of Dakota, to his dearly remembered friendsj the 
 Longs and Lily. 
 
 She met him with outstretched arms and a glad 
 smile of welcome. With the glory of dawning 
 womanhood about her she was more than ever the 
 "Queen of the Prairie," but by the soft Ught in her 
 eyes John saw that she was still his Lily. 
 
 During the long pleasant vacation which followed, 
 John gained strength and vigor once more, and its 
 close found him ably equipped to take up Christ's 
 work once more. 
 
I30 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Long were doubly sorrowful at their 
 second parting from him, for his heart had found its 
 mate and Lily was accompanying him. 
 
 He had gained a lovely bride, and more than that, 
 an enthusiastic helpmate. 
 
 Together they took up the work where John had 
 left it. Ere long the erstwhile "Queen of the Prairie" 
 was known as "Angel of the Poor," for her womanly 
 sympathy could often find its way into darkness which 
 even John's earnestness failed to penetrate. 
 
 One Friday night they both came to take part in 
 our holiness meeting, and the Spirit revealed to them 
 that should they submit all their powers unreservedly 
 to the will of God, He could use them to still higher 
 and more effective purposes of the cause of Jesus. 
 So, John and Lily, side by side, came out at the altar 
 and offered their lives and their services to Jesus for 
 time and for eternity, they, becoming active members 
 in my corps, and a great blessing to the suffering 
 humanity in that community. 
 
 Case 2. — The following letter was received from 
 the girl already mentioned, as the daughter of a 
 Roman Catholic woman, who tried to drive her con- 
 verted daughter, by the worldly pleasures, away from 
 Jesus : 
 
 "Chicago, 111., Oct. 5, 1906. 
 Captain Golden, 
 
 Salvation Army. 
 Dear Friend: 
 
 I feel that I must let you know what the Lord has 
 done for me, 'through you.' 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN" WORKER 131 
 
 Why I ever went to the Salvation Army meeting 
 is more than I know, because I have always been 
 told that the Salvation Army was nothing more than 
 street beggars and a great deal more. 
 
 So I never went to their meetings until I went 
 to No. 4, and I do sincerely thank God that I went, 
 because now I can see how far from the Lord I was 
 wandering and so unintentionally because I never 
 meant to be a sinner, but I just wanted to have a 
 good time. But now, I can see where some of those 
 good times lead us. 
 
 Captain, I often think how brave you must have 
 been to go on with the work at No. 4, with so little 
 help, 'that is, earthly help.' I am sorry that I could 
 not help you, but you see I was not brave like you. 
 I could not talk about Jesus to those who scoffed, 
 but I do want Jesus to help me and strengthen me 
 to do His will. Captain, do you know there is a song 
 that always come to me when I am in any dififlculty, 
 'Lead Me Saviour.' 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 FLOY MAYHEN, 
 2207, 63d St., Chicago." 
 
 It is simply wonderful, that there is no one to 
 lead us like the Saviour, dear Jesus. Who died on 
 Calvary's Cross for our redemption. And now, dear 
 reader, just a word to you. This volume is written 
 for you; if you are a converted Christian enjoying 
 the blessings of a clean heart, indeed, blessed you 
 are, for "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall 
 
132 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 see God." But, if for some reason, if there can be a 
 reason for not being saved, you kept back until this 
 hour, I pray that you may go down upon your knees, 
 at this very moment, just as you are, and open your 
 heart to God, and let Jesus come in: and I know 
 and you will know that the remaining days of your 
 life will be sweet and happy; and when the roll is 
 called up yonder you'll be there, in a robe of white 
 with the angels in the air to meet the Lamb of God, 
 Who will say unto all that loved Him and worked 
 for Him, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant : 
 enter thou into the joy of Thy Lord." 
 
Greek Peasant Woman 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 Greek- American- Christian- 
 Association 
 
 IT is said, by Him who never told a lie, that every 
 tree is known by its own fruit, and the confirma- 
 tion of the statement is conclusive to the student of 
 natural and human history. 
 
 It was an idea of King Maximilian of Bavaria, to 
 transmit to history a reminder of his reign. He 
 instructed the architects of Germany to design a 
 new style to be named after him. Such a style of 
 Maximilianesque was created. An architect — it was 
 Semper, if I am not, mistaken — when asked to take 
 a part in this creation of the so-called Maximilian, 
 style, answered that such a thing could not be made 
 to order, that a style of building is the consequence 
 of the history, the culture, life, and doings of a great 
 period of people. If such be the case with a style of 
 architecture, how much more must it be the case in 
 regard to religion ? 
 
 The history of this style of Maximilian's is, that 
 it has no history, and consequently all efforts of pur- 
 suing eminent architects to adopt the MaximiHan 
 style failed. This short history is that of the at- 
 tempts to create a very much needed world religion. 
 
134 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 It is not the dogma nor the doctrines or the profes- 
 sion that will make it possible for all right thinking 
 minds to unite efforts in building a universal reli- 
 gion, suiHcient to satisfy the intellectual want of 
 every people and of every time. Attempts, all- 
 powerful, such as Papism and Mohammedanism, 
 failed in their egotistic purposes to enforce upon the 
 world an exotic structure. Neither the fires of Tor- 
 quemadas, nor the sword of Islam could deter the 
 bravery of civilization. The blood that was spilled 
 by the milUons of martyrs of the lowly Nazarene 
 served to make the history of the man who died upon . 
 the Cross, more effective and heartfelt world-need 
 for the only aristurgimatical shrine in which all 
 human families may live in peace and prosperity. 
 
 At a time when the world was imperilled by the 
 treatment accorded to Galileo for believing in the 
 motion of the earth; and though 69 years of age he 
 was cast, by the tools of Vatican, into a dungeon, 
 where he lost his sight and ultimately his life; and 
 Copernicus was facing the same fate, for accomplish- 
 ing a noble astronomical discovery; and Martin 
 Luther was persecut'?d by the Roman Catholic 
 church, for trying to bring the people nearer to God. 
 The Greeks, a brave people, who, in the face of 
 starvation, for lack of food, and horrified by the 
 sword of the conqueror, dishonored in their holiest 
 sacreds, pure maidens slain after being used in the 
 most beastly way, mothers put to death after their 
 children were torn off into shreds of flesh under the 
 sword of the barbarous Turk, young people and old 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 135 
 
 aged having no rescuing place to escape from horror 
 and death; when all crowned heads of Europe should 
 bow on their knees and kiss the slipper of the holy- 
 father before they could attain their rights to the 
 throne of their own kingdoms; when all the known 
 world was trembling equally in the name of Moham- 
 med and Pope, these people (the Greeks) stood up, 
 and with all the strength that was left in their lungs, 
 they cried out, "we prefer political slavery rather than 
 to be the slaves of the Pope," and for more than 
 three centuries the Greeks suffered such a martyrdom 
 which if only printed it would be more than a human 
 heart could bear. 
 
 The history of Greece shall remain until the end 
 of time, and as the peoples of the world grow in- 
 telligently and intellectually more enlightened they 
 will come to the appreciation of the fact that the 
 Greek people has contributed more material in paving 
 the way to the spiritual freedom and the individual 
 liberty of the world than any other nation on the 
 face of the earth, and that the Greek spirit is still 
 living and ruling in principle in the very heart of the 
 civilized world. 
 
 It is essential that every nation in making up the 
 list of its benefactors should give the first place to 
 the most distinguished one. In accordance to the 
 general law the Greek nation of today not only 
 owes its literary language, in part at least, to the 
 exertions of the great patriot Korais, but to him is 
 accredited the prophecy, that, "the Greek nation 
 shall never be great again, unless regenerated in 
 Christ." 
 
136 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 Adamantios Korais was born April 27, 1747, in 
 Smyrna. From early youth he devoted himself to 
 the study of old and new languages. In obedience 
 to his father's wishes, he followed a mercantile ca- 
 reer during the year 1772-78, without, however, neg- 
 lecting the sciences. From 1782-88 he studied medi- 
 cine in Montpellier and established himself as a 
 practising physician in Paris. From there he worked 
 incessantly for the education of his compatriots, and 
 endeavored to awaken a favorable opinion of his 
 nation in the Occidental countries. In 1800 he re- 
 ceived the prize of the Academy for an edition of the 
 writings of Hippocrates, but before this time he 
 had attracted the attention of the world of learning 
 by his ability, and Napoleon the Great conferred 
 upon him many honors and titles and appointed 
 him the medical adviser of the Court. Later on he 
 gained fame by his Greek translation of Beccaria's 
 work on crimes and their punishments. This was 
 followed by a work entitled "De I'etat actuel de la 
 civilization en Greece" (Paris, 1803). This was the 
 first publication in Europe which gave true in- 
 formation on the intellectual and moral conditions 
 of the new Greeks. During the period from 1805-27 
 he published a collection — ^twenty volumes — of old 
 Greek classics, with critical explanations and prole- 
 gomena. In the latter he gave his patriotic teach- 
 ings and advices. His greatest merit consisted in 
 his promoting the Greek morals and the Greek 
 language; he eliminated as much as possible all 
 foreign elements, but retained all that was good 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 137 
 
 and useful from all centuries, rejecting the one- 
 sided retention of the old words and forms as not 
 compatible with the understanding of the people. 
 He above all, helped to establish a noble literary- 
 language. On account of his old age he could take 
 no part in the rising of his fatherland in 1821, but 
 aided it greatly by his patriotic pen. When Greece 
 had gained her independence he took an active in- 
 terest in the new formation of his country. In 1830- 
 31 he attacked the government of Kapodistria in two 
 publications. He died in 1833. His autobiography 
 appeared in Paris in the same year. The name of 
 Adamantios Korais will never die from the memory 
 of every patriot Greek, and yet his sincere opinion 
 that "the Greek nation shall never be great again, 
 unless regenerated in Christ," had little effect upon 
 the hearts of the people, or rather upon the hearts of 
 the leaders of the people. 
 
 Great nations have failed, and in every case it was 
 the government's corrttption and neglect of duty 
 that caused the sufferings and failures, of which 
 the political history is too abounding and too ac- 
 cessible to be quoted. We only mention the Greek 
 nation, perhaps the greatest and most illustrious of 
 all nations that ever failed in their political career, 
 because we are well informed and personally ac- 
 quainted with the details that brought this formerly 
 world-wide respected and valued gem of civilization 
 into insignificance in the eye of the scornful, and a 
 plaything in the hands of the so-called great powers 
 of Europe. 
 
138 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 In the year of 1902, while I was a High Priest, 
 Archimandrites, grand representative of the Saint 
 Mary's Monastery, Salamis; Orator and Grand 
 Chaplain of the Supreme Council of Greece; and 
 confessor in the most exclusive societies of Athens, 
 hearing confessions and granting absolutions; the 
 following incident, which is pubhshed for the first 
 time, and only in parts that are printable, brought 
 me to a final decision, that I should leave my home, 
 my loved ones, and all the flourishing prospects 
 to be a Bishop, with all the comforts and luxuries 
 attached to a Bishopric, just because I had witnessed 
 a few scenes of the manifold political plots that 
 caused the downfall of my own nation, and my own 
 people scattered to the four comers of the world, 
 wandering, struggling for their existence, while 
 Greece, the land of the Gods, and the home of art 
 and beauty, was left in the hands of a few parasites, 
 strangers and unsympathetic feudals who have 
 shown no mercy in straining every material and 
 spiritual bit from the people that still honors them 
 as their kings and sovereigns. 
 
 At the time spoken of, there was an open secret 
 to every well informed Greek that the Queen of 
 Greece, Olga, had been the tool of the Russian 
 bureaucracy, trying by means of religious influences 
 to keep the Greeks under the Russian political con- 
 trol; that the Queen Olga paid the expenses for the 
 education of a monk, who, on his return from Rus- 
 sia, where he was graduated from the theological 
 academies of Kiev and Moskow, became the Queen's 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 139 
 
 personal confessor, and afterwards by the Queen's 
 very earnest and almost scandalous activities that 
 monk was raised to the Metropolitan Throne of 
 Athens, which position placed him at the head of 
 the Greek Church, and made him the President of the 
 Holy Synod of Greece. 
 
 The Metropolitan Throne of Athens is the highest 
 and most exalted position that a mortal Greek could 
 approach, and it is, in fact, the next to the King's 
 Throne, most influential occupation, and -more 
 powerful, even than the Royal Throne, because, the 
 Metropolite of Athens is the spiritual leader of all 
 Greeks. 
 
 There was plenty of rejoicing in the Queen's 
 camarilla, at the installation of Procopios (that was 
 the name of the monk) as the Metropolite of Athens, 
 and every effort, Queen Olga leading the fight, had 
 gone forth to assure a complete victory for the Rus- 
 sian bureaucracy, over the few remaining unspoiled 
 patriotic Greeks. 
 
 All the characteristics of a civil war were enacted 
 in the streets of Athens when Queen Olga attempted 
 to enforce upon the Greek people a new inferior 
 language in their Bibles, and in their holy mass — a 
 language, which the Greek people considered as a 
 means to confound their historical and religious 
 customs and habits and subdue them into a Russian 
 spiritual dependency. Against the attempt there was 
 the very best element of the Greek scholars. Adam- 
 antios Korais fought the fight, 100 years before this 
 attempt was made, and he distinctly and clearly made 
 
I40 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 it understood that the Attic Greek language has been, 
 it is and must be the safeguard of all that is beautiful 
 in the Greek history. 
 
 Faithful to their traditions the Greeks of the pres- 
 ent generation fought and won a triumphant vic- 
 tory. The innocent blood of the people that was 
 slain on the streets of Athens by orders from the 
 Royal Palace, have wrote with indelible letters, the 
 anathema, which, frenzied mothers in the sight of 
 their assassinated sons, and overwhelmed in grief, 
 cried against Queen Olga, and her crown all but torn 
 to pieces by the wronged multitudes. 
 
 Within 24 hours from that terrible bloody day, 
 that will remain an indelible stigma in the history of 
 Queen Olga's life, the most exalted Metropolite Pro- 
 copios was a fallen ragmuffin and the most hated per- 
 son in all Greece. And when every one of his col- 
 leagues deserted him and the King and Queen shut 
 their door in his face, leaving him a pitiful victim of 
 the political plots to save the royal skin, and while 
 there was no visible friend to give him a helping 
 hand when fallen from the Metropolitan Throne, and 
 while this nlonk-metropolite Procopios, in all his glo- 
 rious days had been a profound enemy against every 
 honest effort, especially against )roung priests who 
 refused to serve his unlawful appetites, and my own 
 experience with this monk-metropolite Procopios is 
 not of the kind to be printed, yet, it was I who put 
 my own life in a probable danger to save him from 
 the mob, that was ready to attack him, and probably 
 kill him, the day kfter I made his escape possible 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 141 
 
 into the Saint Mary's Monastery, Salamis, where at 
 the time I was Archimandrites. 
 
 Procopios, in the opinion of his own friends, was 
 the last man in the Greek priesthood, qualified to 
 occupy the Metropolitan Throne of Athens, and 
 totally lost his will power when he became Metro- 
 polite by Royal favor. There was an organized clique 
 around the Metropolitan mansion, but the controlling 
 power should be located within the walls of the Royal 
 Palace. Procopios was only an instrument transmit- 
 ting orders. And if I was allowed to publish all that 
 Procopios himself told me, in Salamis, it would make 
 the Greek people sit up and take notice, but in my 
 vows as confessor I have to carry the confession of 
 the fallen Metropolite Procopios with me to my grave, 
 unless the need arises to serve the best interests of 
 my beloved country. It was his last confession upon 
 the earth. He died and went there, where, at the 
 great Judgment Day, he, surely will give account for 
 all his deeds done in the body. 
 
 For the first time in the ecclesiastical history of 
 the Greek Kingdom, a Metropolite abdicated from 
 his throne, rejected by his closest friends, helpless 
 under the anathema of the people, above whom he 
 was called to be the spiritual leader, his life imperilled 
 by the injured public sentiment, Procopios, left a real 
 wreck cast by the shore, as a warning sign of those 
 dangers to which every public man is exposed, when 
 corrupted by higher favours and neglects his duties 
 to the people who entrusted him with responsibilities 
 of national importance. 
 
142 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 This incident, which I hope will never occur again, 
 and many other minor opportunities, in which I 
 had a part to play, during that fateful Queen Olga's 
 attempt to adulterate the beautiful and pure Attic 
 Greek language, gave me the exceptional privilege 
 to study all the works of the political machinery in 
 Greece. I have seen the drama enacted behind the 
 scenes. It is a dreadful drama that could break the 
 neck of the strongest long-suffering. The awful 
 drama that is enacted in Greece at the expenses of 
 the people is a long, very long story; perhaps it 
 has its beginning with the reign of King George and 
 Queen Olga, I will not say, but the people of Greece, 
 the poorest people of Europe, are contented and well 
 pleased that they have a King who is a great diplo- 
 mat, and he is one of the richest Kings in Europe, 
 and their Queen, Olga, they believe (the ignorant 
 do) that she is a saintly woman (as all the Russian 
 saints are), and this ignorant Greek people, they 
 simply feel glad to leave their homes and their chil- 
 dren and go into war, like sheep into the butcher's 
 shop, sacrifice their lives, thus destroying their 
 homes and the hopes of their loved ones, every time 
 King George calls them to arms to fight against the 
 Turks. And King George has always a great patri- 
 otic cause to fight the Turks. And the Greeks could 
 not appreciate more highly a privilege than to fight 
 and die for the deliverance of their brethren in Crete 
 and for the salvation of the unfortunate Christians in 
 Macedonia. 
 
 Yet, for half a century, in fact, since King George 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 143 
 
 came to Greece, there are hundreds of thousands of 
 the best Greek patriots that have been killed, slain, or 
 assassinated, and nearly a billion drachmas national 
 debt, hanging upon the neck of every Greek, like the 
 Damoclean sword, but there is no deliverance for the 
 Cretans, and there is no salvation for the Mace- 
 donians, instead there are the traps strategically 
 placed across the Greek borders, so, every time the 
 Greek patriots, in answer to the call of their King, 
 are sent to render a helping hand to the sufferers, 
 they cross the border, only to find, but too late, that 
 they have been trapped, under the sword of the 
 enemy, the Turk; or they are left at the mercy of 
 their assassins, the Bulgars. This drama is going 
 on repeatedly with great success, and to the amuse- 
 ment of the observing great powers of Europe. 
 
 Occasionally there is some crippling of the territory 
 already belonging to the possessions of Greece, be- 
 cause the places are of some strategical importance, 
 and this reason is enough, that they should be taken 
 away from the Greeks. And there is a financial 
 commission appointed by the great powers, because 
 King George is a great diplomat and he wants to be 
 sure that his allowance is coming to him increasingly, 
 every year, from the coffers of the Greek treasury, 
 while the international commission should count every 
 penny that the Greek expends in bread for his 
 children. 
 
 In the evolution of events, I believe, that there 
 is a time coming, when the Greek people shall rise, 
 from the lethargy, in which they unnaturally are 
 
144 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 slumbering, for a long time, and they shall awake 
 and break every fetter, and shake off their feet every 
 chain, and their eyes shall be opened and they shall 
 see things that will horrify them as a nation; then 
 shall they know the persons responsible for their suf- 
 ferings and for the sufferings of the Cretans and 
 Macedonians and why Carditses was beheaded in a 
 dungeon, without giving him the privilege of free 
 citizenship, to prove his reason or his sanity, without 
 any chance to protect his life; and where and by 
 whom that plot was framed up, just to turn the tide 
 of public anger against a royal gang, thus causing the 
 destruction of two beautiful Greek- girls, that left 
 alone in the world to suffer from consumption, in 
 agony, to die with the stigma as sisters of a would- 
 be royal assassin. It was my privilege to take 
 care of these two unfortunate sisters, both suffering, 
 and the story of these two girls and the uprising of 
 the Greek people against the adulteration of their 
 language by Queen Olga, settled my determination 
 to fight for the rights of my own people and my be- 
 loved country. But, tlie time for the Greek people 
 to stand up and walk on their own feet, shall come 
 when the prophecy of the great patriot Adamantios 
 Korais, is no more prophecy, but in reality the Greek 
 people will be regenerated in Christ, and there and 
 then shall be a great Greek nation, not only within 
 the boundaries of the feudatory of King George, but 
 within the bounds of love that unites all the millions 
 of people that speak the historical Attic Greek lan- 
 guage, and a great Greek nation shall attract the 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 145 
 
 attention of all the civilized world, once more as in 
 the days of old. 
 
 I know the dangers in which I am exposed for 
 the step I have taken, because, I know the character 
 and the principles of the Greek people, perhaps, as 
 well as any living Greek, the demagogues, the 
 priests, the church, and the drones and parasites of 
 the royal gang, they each and every one and all to- 
 gether are going to use all their power and money 
 that is at their disposal, and with no regards as to 
 the honesty of means they shall move earth and hell 
 to quench this movement for the regeneration of 
 the Greek people, but having all my trust upon the 
 Almighty and Omnipotent God, in the name of His 
 Son Jesus Christ, Who died that all men may be 
 happy, and in the right Spirit of love to God and to 
 my fellow men, I dare launch the Greek-Amerikan- 
 Christian-Association. 
 
 Every Greek of reputable character, and all the 
 lovers of the Greek ancient and modern history, are 
 eligible to membership. It is my purpose to en- 
 deavor by all the Christian means to bring the Greek 
 and American people into a mutual, intellectual and 
 intelligent understanding. It has been my experi- 
 ence in studying conditions for the last six years, 
 that the Greeks in the United States know very little 
 or nothing of the American history, government, 
 political, social, customs and habits of the American 
 people, which, also, unfortunate as it may appear, 
 yet it is the truth, that only a very limited number 
 of Americans whom I have found all over the United 
 
146 CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 States, are well informed of the doings in Greece, 
 and still fewer well acquainted and unprejudiced as 
 to the historical and classical importance of the 
 Greek nation. 
 
 It is estimated that there are about 300,000 Greek 
 people in the United States, representing the 12,000,- 
 000 of Greek-speaking people that is the Greek 
 nation extended all around the Mediterranean coun- 
 tries. 
 
 When it is considered that the vast majority of 
 the Greeks in the United States, has never had any 
 opportunity to attend a Christian meeting, or hear 
 the Gospel preached in their own language, it is to 
 their credit that, with all the temptations and the 
 ambiguous associations which the laboring class is 
 often in contact with they have not been worse than 
 they are; it is an indication that the primitive and 
 strong character of the Greek seldom yields to temp- 
 tation; they hold fast to their historical energy and 
 honesty. 
 
 There has never been an attempt of any impor- 
 tance, neither has there ever been any organized ef- 
 fort, for the regeneration of the Greek people, and 
 while the Home and Foreign Missions of America 
 for the last 25 years have given the best of their 
 spiritual leaders for the conversion of the Zulu and 
 the Mogul and miUions of American dollars have 
 been expended, with insignificant returns, in tr3dng 
 vainly to make real Christians out of a barbarous 
 and semi-human race of people, and trying to civil- 
 ize the jungles of Africa, the most urgent duty has 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 147 
 
 been neglected, and some spasmodical efforts that 
 have been put forth by the zeal of earnest individuals, 
 were soon exhausted, and failed, not only for lack 
 of financial support, but, the worst, by spiritual dis- 
 couragements, and today a noble and the most his- 
 torical race of peoples, the Greeks, are drifting in 
 despair, away from God, politically perishing, blind, 
 and ignorant priests, and political demagogues lead- 
 ing them fast into the ditch. 
 
 The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers 
 are few; who will help us to garner in? HELP! is 
 the cry, the most earnest cry, that was ever uttered 
 from the lips and from the heart of a sincere Chris- 
 tian worker. 
 
 In organizing the Greek-Amerikan-Christian-As- 
 sociation, all the latest and most effective, spiritual 
 and industrial methods will be employed. 
 
 It is hoped that the organization will be incor- 
 porated under the laws of the United States, as soon 
 as there are members sufficient in number to assem- 
 ble in their first meeting and vote the Constitution and 
 the By-Laws of the Association. 
 
 Much consideration will be given to the methods 
 of the Y. M. C. A., and Y. W. C. A. This two-fold 
 Institution, which in the opinion of Christian leaders, 
 and the most distinguished sociologists, of the pres- 
 ent time, is the very best agency to approach all na- 
 tions, and spread civilization, well established upon 
 the fundamental principles of Christianity. 
 
 For the last few months in my struggle trying 
 to establish the Greek-Amerikan-Christian-Associa- 
 
US CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 tion and at the same time keep my soul and body 
 together providing a lean livelihood by selling this 
 book, I can truthfully say that I had more experi- 
 ences than in all my life before. One clergyman of 
 the high Episcopal church in the most fashionable 
 Back Bay, Boston, offered to grant me the use of 
 his church any time I wanted to offer the mass as 
 high priest according to the ritual of the Greek 
 Orthodox Church, if I would only "break off all re- 
 lations with Protestant bodies here in America." 
 I have a letter from this clergyman which is the 
 most astounding fact of his inconsistency, because 
 he himself is an active member of the Bible Club, a 
 purely Protestant organization: he invited me to one 
 of their meetings, but he would not purchase my 
 book to help me to my bread and butter. Another 
 clergyman, a member of the executive committee of 
 City Missions, Boston, would not purchase my book, 
 unless I offered myself to be employed by them at 
 a certain salary, and he gave me his card introducing 
 me to chairman of that organization : 
 
 Last winter I began to preach to the Greeks at 
 Kneeland street, Boston, in the open air, and when I 
 went to see the police captain of that district he 
 promised to co-operate with me and gave me his 
 consent to go on with my work, but the following 
 Sunday his Lieutenant came up to me, while I was 
 preaching on the street, he stopped me, on the 
 pretense, that he was informed of a plot among the 
 Greeks to take my life. And when I made my 
 complaints to the General Secretary of New Eng- 
 
INTO A CHRISTIAN WORKER 149 
 
 land Missions, he told me that I should have known 
 that Boston is a Catholic town, and that the police 
 being informed that I was an ex-priest, they simply 
 would not tolerate me. Horror stricken by this 
 statement I went to see the captain myself, and the 
 very same man who promised co-operation, only a 
 few days hence, he stood up in front of my face and 
 in a savage manner told me that he would not tol- 
 erate me to preach on the streets of Boston. 
 
 The names of all concerned are in my possession 
 and open to investigation by the general public. But 
 I will omit them here for reasons well understood. 
 
 A number of other discouraging instances, only 
 worked together to deeper impress upon my heart 
 the importance and the excellency of my high 
 calling. Sooner or later, in the inevitable law of 
 evolution and universal progress, the Greek nation 
 must be regenerated in spirit and in truth: and I 
 believe that it is not only a case of courtesy, but, 
 there is a sense of duty for every true American man 
 and woman to co-operate in the uplifting of all man- 
 kind. As for me I fully appreciate the privilege to 
 suffer for the benefit of my fellow men, and I can 
 hopefully repeat Tennyson's immortal words: 
 
 Once in a golden hour 
 
 I cast to earth a seed. 
 Up then came a flower, 
 
 The people said, a weed. 
 
 To and fro they went 
 Thro' my garden bower, 
 
ISO CONVERSION OF A HIGH PRIEST 
 
 And muttering discontent 
 Cursed me and my flower. 
 
 Then it grew so tall, 
 It wore a crown of light, 
 
 But thieves from o'er the wall 
 Stole the seed by night. 
 
 Sow'd it far and wide, 
 By every town and tower, 
 
 Till all the people cried, 
 "Splendid is the flower:" 
 
 Read my little fable, 
 He that runs may read : 
 
 Most can raise the flower now. 
 For all have got the seed. 
 
Conclusion 
 
 Allow me, dear reader, to say in closing, that it 
 is my sincere opinion that in view of the reasonings 
 and facts presented in the preceding pages, every in- 
 dividual who reads this Book intelligently, and who 
 is in possession of a sound and unprejudiced reason, 
 will come to the conclusion that there is only one 
 religion worth having, and that is the reUgion by 
 Jesus, of Jesus, for Jesus; which is the revelation of 
 the Bible, Divinely adapted to produce the greatest 
 present and eternal spiritual good to the human 
 family. And if anyone should doubt His power 
 (which, in view of its adaptations and its effects as 
 herein developed, would involve the absurdity of 
 doubting whether an intelligent design had an intel- 
 ligent designer), still, be the origin of the Gospel of 
 Jesus where it may, in heaven, earth, or hell, the 
 demonstration is conclusive that it is the only re- 
 ligion possible for man, in order to perfect his nature, 
 and restore his lapsed powers to harmony and holi- 
 ness, which is the only avenue to usefulness and 
 happiness. 
 
 THE END