BX 9225 .B43 H3 
 
 Harlow, S. Ralph b. 1885. 
 
 The life of H. Roswell Bates 
 
THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
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 THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 MAY 5 1915 
 
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 H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 BY 
 
 S. RALPH HARLOW 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 London and Edinburgh 
 
Copyright, 1914, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 New York : 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 125 North Wabash Ave. 
 Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 
 
To 
 
 EDITH TALCOTT BATES 
 
 Wife of 
 
 H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 This Book is Affectionately Dedicated 
 BY THE Friend of Them Both 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 THIS little volume has been prepared as 
 a work of love, in the hope that it 
 might serve as a memorial for the 
 many friends to whom in Spring Street, at 
 the student conferences, and in his wider min- 
 istry, Mr. Bates brought the strong, attractive 
 message of his life. If to a larger circle it 
 may present concretely the possibilities of 
 the Christian ministry as they have actually 
 been realized in the center of one of the most 
 difficult fields in our own or any land, and 
 if to men in the ministry who are face to face 
 with such problems as those with which Mr. 
 Bates struggled, the message of his life shall 
 bring hope and inspiration to enter with new 
 joy into the glorious, unending conflict, I shall 
 feel that God has richly blessed my work. 
 
 The distance from America and the inac- 
 cessibility to much detail made it impossible 
 for me to attempt any full biographical 
 sketch. The first two chapters form a con- 
 densed outline of Mr. Bates' life, and in the 
 succeeding chapters I have endeavored to 
 bring out those characteristics of his life 
 which endeared him to a host of friends, 
 and those features of his work which made 
 it of universal interest. The indiscriminate 
 use of the names Roswell and Herb may seem 
 strange to those who knew Mr. Bates by only 
 one of them. But as his family circle and 
 many friends used the former name, while his 
 
8 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 college and seminary friends and the students 
 knew him only as Herb, it seemed best to use 
 both. 
 
 My friendship for Roswell Bates began in 
 my college days at Harvard, and was strength- 
 ened as I met him at the summer conferences. 
 Upon graduation, I went to New York, where 
 I spent a year as a worker in the Neighbor- 
 hood House at Spring Street. The close in- 
 timacy of that year, when we lived together 
 in the Annex, and shared each others' expe- 
 riences as few men ever do, ripened our love 
 and mutual understanding. During my sem- 
 inary course at Union, I continued my ser- 
 vice at Spring Street, where Mrs. Harlow 
 was then a resident worker. To the day of 
 our departure from America, Mrs. Harlow 
 and I possessed in a very real way the friend- 
 ship of Mr. and Mrs. Bates, and this friend- 
 ship followed us into our missionary life. It 
 is not, then, merely as my friend that I think 
 and write of Roswell Bates, but as my 
 brother, loved in a common loyalty to the 
 ministry of Jesus Christ. 
 
 I am indebted to the generous help of many 
 friends who sent me their reminiscences and 
 told of what Mr. Bates had meant in their 
 own lives. Especially am I indebted to Miss 
 Anne Wiggin of the Neighborhood House, 
 and to my wife, both of whom made easier 
 my task by their encouragement and help. 
 
 S. Ralph Harlow. 
 International College, 
 
 Smyrna, Turkey-in-Asia, 
 

 Contents 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. 
 
 The Years of Preparation . 
 
 15 
 
 II. 
 
 The Years of Fulfillment . 
 
 33 
 
 III. 
 
 Spring Street 
 
 49 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Neighborhood - House 
 
 
 
 Family .... 
 
 75 
 
 V. 
 
 Faithful unto Death . 
 
 93 
 
 VI. 
 
 His Work in the Schools and 
 
 
 
 Colleges .... 
 
 105 
 
 VII. 
 
 The College Conferences . 
 
 125 
 
 VIII. 
 
 From Darkness into Light . 
 
 137 
 
 IX. 
 
 Prospice 
 
 140 
 
Illustrations 
 
 Opposite Pagb 
 
 H. RoswELL Bates . . Frontispiece 
 
 The Child i8 
 
 The Boy 28 
 
 The Father 42 
 
 Spring Street Presbyterian Church 
 AND Neighborhood-House . 50 
 
 A NORTHFIELD CONFERENCE GrOUP . 126 
 
 The Family 142 
 
 Entrance to Bates House . .156 
 
 n 
 
I 
 
 THE YEARS OF PREPARATION 
 
 n 
 
Where cross the Crowded ways of life, 
 Where sound the cries of race and clan, 
 
 Above the noise of selfish strife 
 
 We hear Thy voice, O Son of Man! 
 
 In haunts of wretchedness and need, 
 
 On shadowed thresholds, dark with fears; 
 
 From paths where hide the lures of greed, 
 We catch the vision of Thy tears. 
 
 From tender childhood's helplessness. 
 From woman's grief, man's burdened toil, 
 
 From famished souls, from sorrow's stress. 
 Thy heart has never known recoil. 
 
 The cup of water given for Thee, 
 Still holds the freshness of Thy grace; 
 
 Yet long these multitudes to see 
 The sweet compassion of Thy face. 
 
 O Master, from the mountain-side. 
 Make haste to heal these hearts of pain; 
 
 Among these restless throngs abide, 
 O tread the city's streets again. 
 
 Till sons of men shall learn Thy love. 
 And follow where Thy feet have trod; 
 
 Till glorious from Thy heaven above. 
 Shall come the city of our God. 
 
 — Frank Mason North. 
 
 U 
 
I 
 
 THE YEARS OF PREPARATION 
 
 HERBERT ROSWELL' BATES was 
 born in that period after the Civil 
 War when the nation had settled down 
 to peace and prosperity, but he belonged es- 
 sentially in thought and action to the period 
 of social and industrial development of our 
 own day. In a remarkable degree it was 
 given to him to make practical application of 
 the Gospel of Christ to some of the most 
 difficult social problems of this restless age, 
 and to reveal in his own attractive person- 
 ality the possibilities of far-reaching service 
 in the ministry of our Lord. 
 
 For his life-work Roswell Bates was well 
 prepared by heredity and training. His 
 grandparents on his father's side were of old 
 New England stock, the grandfather a man of 
 keen intelligence and high integrity, stern, reso- 
 lute, honored, and feared by all who knew 
 him; the grandmother, of gentler spirit. It 
 must have been from her that Charles Car- 
 roll Bates, Roswell's father, inherited his 
 
 IS 
 
16 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 tenderness and sympathy. These qualities, 
 combined with the stern virtues of the father, 
 under whose discipline he grew to manhood, 
 made him a man of unusual charm and 
 ability. His mother died when he was but a 
 baby. Charles Carroll Bates began his prac- 
 tice of medicine in the town of Potsdam, New 
 York, and there he married Charlotte Clark, 
 whose ancestry went back to an old Holland 
 Dutch family on her paternal side, and on 
 her mother's side to the family of Aaron 
 Burr. Together they founded a home, into 
 which the young husband determined to bring 
 all that he had longed for and missed in his 
 early days, after his mother's death. He could 
 not have chosen a better partner for that home. 
 Charlotte Clark's happy and joyous nature, 
 her fine feeling and ready tact, her intellectual 
 tastes and general capability, fitted her to be 
 a perfect home-maker. 
 
 Their first child, born some years after their 
 marriage, died in his infancy. The second 
 child was a girl, and two years afterwards, on 
 April 20, 1870, Herbert Roswell was born. 
 No child could have received a more joyous 
 welcome or have grown up in happier sur- 
 roundings. The entire family was united by 
 the closest affection, and the father and mother 
 devoted themselves to their children. When 
 
THE YEARS OF PEEPARATION 17 
 
 Roswell was three, the family moved to 
 Auburn, New York, and there Dr. Bates soon 
 acquired a large and exacting practice. But 
 he was still a companion to his children. He 
 planned to have them go with him as often as 
 possible on his professional drives into the 
 country or about the city. He was interested 
 in his patients as human beings as well as 
 petitioners for his skill, and the boy became 
 interested in them too. Thus, from the begin- 
 ning, the world was always for Roswell a world 
 of people. He felt their needs and shared their 
 homely problems. 
 
 Others of his later characteristics were early 
 shown. He was always ready to meet emer- 
 gencies and was seldom disconcerted. He 
 was rarely punished, for the sweetness of his 
 nature, his desire to make every one happy, 
 his keen sense of right and wrong, and his re- 
 sponse to reason, rendered it unnecessary. 
 
 The atmosphere of the home was religious. 
 The children were taught that God was their 
 Heavenly Father and that all good things came 
 from Him. He had made them and given 
 them to their parents in answer to prayer. It 
 was natural that they should love Him. Their 
 father and mother talked to Him, and they 
 learned to talk to Him too. At family prayers 
 the father sat on the big sofa with a child 
 
18 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 on each side. Cuddle;! close to him they spelled 
 out the words in the big family Bible, when it 
 was their turn to read a verse. Their father's 
 prayer was simple and sincere, and he prayed 
 for them and the things in which they were 
 interested. In Roswell's own Bible, which he 
 always cherished, the father wrote, "God bless 
 my son, that my son may bless the world." 
 That prayer was a natural and spontaneous 
 expression of the heart is illustrated by many 
 occurrences of Roswell's childhood. 
 
 An incident full of humor took place when 
 he was but seven years old, and was visiting a 
 cousin, a boy of about his own age. One day 
 they got into a heated political argument, Ros- 
 well was a burning Republican, his cousin 
 just as ardent a Democrat. Roswell loved his 
 cousin Frank so dearly that his heart ached 
 for what to him was Frank's benighted igno- 
 rance. That evening during prayers, in which 
 even the children joined, when Roswell's turn 
 came, he startled the family by praying, 
 "Please, Heavenly Father, won't you please 
 forgive the Democrats, for you remember they 
 don't know any better." This produced a 
 very audible "Humph!" from the other side 
 of the room. 
 
 At another time, while making a visit in 
 the country with his cousin, the boys made a 
 
The Child 
 
THE YEARS OF PREPARATION 19 
 
 raft. At dinner-time they told of their labors 
 with great enthusiasm. After the meal, how- 
 ever, they returned to the river-bank to find the 
 raft destroyed by the rough village boys. You 
 can Imagine the state of mind of Roswell and 
 Frank, as, with indignation in their eyes and 
 heated words upon their lips, they returned 
 home. Soon Roswell's voice softened, however, 
 and he said, "But, Cousin Mary, I shall pray 
 for them tonight." His cousin Frank said, 
 with a decided shrug of his shoulders, "Well, 
 / shan't" 
 
 The story of these early childhood days is 
 that of any happy, healthy, American boy. One 
 day when Roswell was playing at the home of 
 a little friend he noticed that particularly hope- 
 ful supper preparations were being made. 
 Probably company was expected. Taking in 
 the situation in his quick way, he quietly re- 
 marked to the maid, "Elsie, you may put on 
 a plate for me." 
 
 Roswell was seven and his sister nine when 
 they first went to school. Up to that time his 
 sister was almost his only playmate, and 
 throughout his whole life there existed between 
 them a close comradeship and sympathy, which 
 was a strong controUing factor in the lives of 
 each. They were alike in ideals and bound 
 
20 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 together in an unusual intimacy by the pre- 
 cepts and joys of their early home. 
 
 They went to the public school. Roswell 
 had been so sheltered from rough companion- 
 ship that he found this new world full of ex- 
 citement and thrilling adventure. Returning 
 home from school one day, he announced to 
 his mother, "I have had a terrible fight !" As 
 he bore no marks of the fray, his mother's 
 curiosity exceeded her anxiety, and she asked 
 for an account of the event. He explained 
 that a colored boy had followed him from 
 school, calling him names, and had picked up 
 a stone and thrown it right through his slate. 
 And sure enough there was the hole, an in- 
 disputable witness to the one-sided "fight." 
 
 It was then that the mother gently told him 
 that such a deliberate act of hostility must 
 be the result of some unhappy and morose 
 quality in the boy's heart, perhaps a lack of 
 some one to love him and to sympathize with 
 him. How it came about no one knows, but 
 very soon the colored boy, who had been at 
 once the dread and the butt of the other chil- 
 dren in the school, was a firm friend of the 
 white boy whom he had tried to injure. 
 From this time Roswell took a warm interest 
 in the colored race, an interest which he 
 always felt and which manifested itself in 
 
THE YEARS OF PREPARATION 21 
 
 many a visit to the colored settlement in Au- 
 burn, and later, in his college days in Clinton, 
 to direct religious and social work among 
 them. 
 
 But a cloud of sorrow came over the beau- 
 tiful life of this household, for when Roswell 
 was but ten years old, his father developed 
 a disease of the spine, from which he expe- 
 rienced acute and increasing suffering until his 
 death two years later. Of this suffering the 
 children were necessarily witnesses, although 
 the worst of it was kept from them. A!s the 
 family life centered more and more in the 
 sickroom, its scenes of patient endurance im- 
 pressed them with the conquest of the soul 
 and the value of the spiritual life. It was no 
 wonder that when his father passed from this 
 world into the next, heaven became a very 
 real place to the boy, or that there came a ten- 
 derness and thoughtfulness into his life. 
 
 From this time, too, the tie between mother 
 and son became even closer. He not only knew 
 her feelings by Instinct, but he knew how to 
 express his sympathy. Her nobility of soul, 
 her cheerful way of meeting life's problems, her 
 happy faith, as well as her quiet undemonstra- 
 tive grief, all met their re^sponse in him. He be- 
 gan to feel a man's desire to help in meeting the 
 family's expenses, and his mother allowed him 
 
22 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 to undertake the sale of a small folding table. 
 He spent many hours in Auburn and the adjoin- 
 ing towns seeking orders. He was wonderfully 
 successful and earned a considerable sum, 
 which his mother deposited to his credit. Not 
 one cent did he spend upon any of those many 
 things for which boys of his age always long. 
 But when Christmas-time came, he gave each 
 member of the family a beautiful and compara- 
 tively expensive present. And he was happy 
 then ! In his later days, he had what he called 
 his "enjoyment fund" — it was for the use of 
 some college lad, who, working his way through 
 college, was unable to spend anything upon 
 social pleasures. Supplying this lack was his 
 enjoyment! 
 
 When he had just passed his eighteenth birth- 
 day, Roswell was confined to his bed one day 
 with a slight illness, and his mother spent the 
 greater part of the time at his side. She talked 
 of his future and of her ambitions for him. She 
 longed to have him become a Christian minister. 
 That was his last day with his mother. She 
 passed away at night in her sleep, and the next 
 morning he and his sister knelt hand in hand 
 by her side and consecrated their lives anew 
 to the God she loved. 
 
 Two months after his mother's death, his 
 sister entered college, and his aunt and he were 
 
THE YEARS OF PREPARATION 23 
 
 left alone until he finished his high-school 
 course. His aunt had always been like an older 
 sister, and from this time his affection for her 
 became yet stronger and he gave her the devo- 
 tion of a son. Till his earthly life was ended 
 they were not separated, and she writes of their 
 relationship, "I feel so grateful for the many 
 years I had him. I doubt if there is a mother 
 living who has had such love as he gave me." 
 In his ministry at Spring Street, his aunt gave 
 him not only her loving companionship, but en- 
 tered with earnestness into his work and lived 
 for some years in the Neighborhood House. 
 
 Till the time of his mother's death the ques- 
 tion of Roswell's future life-work seemed al- 
 most to decide itself. His great-grandfather, 
 grandfather, and father were physicians, and as 
 he was the only son, his first thought was, "I 
 must follow in their footsteps," for he knew 
 that in this life with its many and varied op- 
 portunities, a large field was open for useful- 
 ness. At the close of his junior year in the 
 High School, he had gone to Ithaca and passed 
 the entrance examinations for the Scientific 
 School of Cornell, with the intention of prepar- 
 ing himself for the medical course. This was 
 just before his mother's death. But the in- 
 fluence of his mother's talk with him that last 
 day together turned his thoughts in the direc- 
 
24 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 tion of the ministry, and during his senior year 
 in the High School he determined to take an- 
 other year of classical study and then enter the 
 academic course at Hamilton College, to fit him- 
 self for the theological seminary. 
 
 Upon leaving the High School, a proposition 
 came from family friends living in Nebraska, 
 asking if Rosvvell would come to Elba and be- 
 come the principal of their high school. This 
 expression of confidence appealed to his man- 
 hood and seemed very attractive to the boy, 
 and he accepted. His intensity of living was 
 manifest even at that early age, for often after 
 a day of hard work in Elba, his evening was 
 spent in a neighboring town, leading a meeting 
 which aimed at the suppression of intemperance 
 and vice. He called upon the young people 
 around him to help by furnishing music for his 
 meetings. Frequently he assisted in services 
 on the Sabbath when the pastor was not able 
 to be present. His wonderful love for his fel- 
 low-men developed in a larger degree during 
 these months. The self- forget fulness and sacri- 
 fice which characterized his entire life was often 
 noticed and spoken of there. He organized 
 neighborhood clubs in the town in order to es- 
 tablish high ideals among the people. At the 
 close of the year he was urged to continue his 
 
THE YEARS OF PREPARATION 25 
 
 work, but was firm in his decision to enter 
 college that Fall. 
 
 In the Fall of 1891 he became a Freshman 
 at Hamilton College, Clinton, New York. A 
 business man who was his room-mate for two 
 of his college years, and who possibly knew 
 him as well as one man can know another, 
 writes, "There is nothing in the world that I 
 would exchange for my memories and thoughts 
 of him." Another friend at college tells how 
 Roswell never distinguished himself as a stu- 
 dent, for it was impossible for him to stay alone 
 long enough to do sustained work. He al- 
 ways had to have one or more men with him. 
 He arranged "study-groups," asking men to 
 come to his room to study with him, or going 
 up College Hill to study with his friends in 
 their rooms in the dormitories. It was always 
 a question just how much serious work was 
 done in these hours of good-fellowship, but 
 Roswell protested that a vast amount was ac- 
 complished. 
 
 During his college course an incident took 
 place which was a hard experience for him, but 
 which showed the heroic unselfishness which 
 always marked his actions. To shield a fellow- 
 student from disgrace, after that student had 
 pleaded with Roswell for help, he allowed him- 
 self to be accused of a theft, and remained 
 
26 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 silent. He was suspended from the college, 
 and the strain of this experience brought on a 
 serious illness. The facts of the case having 
 been cleared up, Roswell returned to college 
 and became a stronger power for good in the 
 life of the college than ever before. 
 
 During his senior year a prize was offered 
 for the best thesis in advocacy of a protective 
 tariff. Roswell amazed his classmates by an- 
 nouncing that he had written a thesis. Politics 
 made no particular appeal to him, and the sub- 
 ject seemed to be outside his natural interest. 
 It was autobiographical in form, and purported 
 to be the story of a day laborer who at great 
 effort had acquired a farm and cottage, had 
 a family of children, and was making a keen 
 struggle to maintain his economic independence, 
 and to give advantages to his children. The 
 narrative showed how the national tariff policy 
 had helped the man in his successive steps up- 
 ward, and how a change in that policy would 
 add to the odds against which he was fighting. 
 The general verdict of his friends was that 
 Herb's production was an interesting little 
 novel, but a poor thesis. He said that It was 
 the only kind he could write, that he had read 
 and studied a great deal about the tariff, but 
 had no interest in statistics and long arguments 
 
THE YEARS OF PEEPARATION 27 
 
 which were not expressed in terms of life. His 
 thesis took the prize. 
 
 One of the interesting experiences of Herb's 
 upper-class years was his connection with the 
 colored church. There was a large negro popu- 
 lation in Clinton and they were almost entirely 
 without religious privileges. A colored Meth- 
 odist preacher had antagonized the colored 
 Baptists, and a colored Baptist had tried to re- 
 baptize the colored Methodists. The situation 
 was desperate, but Herb came to the rescue. 
 He became pastor of the colored church. 
 
 The congregation met on Sunday evenings, in 
 the large room of an abandoned school-house, 
 which was usually well filled. Roswell gave 
 himself to his first congregation. He preached 
 simple direct homilies, which were suggested 
 by the needs of his hearers, and which had to 
 do with the elemental problems and duties of 
 life. He had the same fervent manner and 
 vivid concrete expression which characterized 
 all of his later public speaking. He never found 
 more joy in presenting the claims of Christ to 
 a university audience, and was never more ear- 
 nest in seeking to win to Christian service lives 
 of rare promise, than in these early days when 
 to his colored flock he spoke plainly yet loving- 
 ly of their besetting sins, pictured the joy of 
 the Christian life, and pleaded with them to 
 
28 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 give themselves to their Savior. He followed 
 up his preaching with true pastoral visitation. 
 He taught them how to make their homes more 
 attractive. He closely watched those who were 
 not always inclined to be sober. And when 
 the time came for him to leave college, he 
 planned for the continuation of his work. In 
 return, those for whom he worked loved him 
 devotedly, and once, when there was a death 
 among their number, and it was suggested that 
 an ordained minister be secured, a general opin- 
 ion was expressed, "Mr. Bates is all the min- 
 ister we want." 
 
 President Stryker, of Hamilton College, 
 writes, "Many of Mr. Bates' class have become 
 widely and deeply useful, but none of them be- 
 yond Roswell Bates." 
 
 Upon his graduation from college, in June, 
 1895, he went back to the home of his child- 
 hood. Auburn, for his seminary training, which 
 extended from 1895 to 1898. He always re- 
 mained a devoted and loyal son of Auburn 
 Seminary. A decade before him, Maltbie Bab- 
 cock had been a student there, and Babcock was 
 his ideal of a minister. In later years, when he 
 was at Spring Street, a letter of encourage- 
 ment from Maltbie Babcock hung over his desk ; 
 a letter written to him as he took up his min- 
 
The Boy 
 
THE YEARS OP PREPARATION 29 
 
 istry as pastor of Spring Street Church. The 
 letter read : 
 
 Brick Presbyterian Church, 
 14 East 37th Street, New York. 
 January 31, 1901. 
 My dear Mr. Bates: 
 
 I am delighted that you have accepted the call to 
 Spring Street and assure you that no one has 
 warmer wishes and more certain hopes for you than 
 I. I hope you will feel that at any time I can be of 
 service to you by correspondence or interview you 
 will take advantage of me. 
 
 Your sincere friend, 
 
 M. D. Babcock. 
 
 Auburn has never lacked men of consecrated 
 and heroic life among her student body, and 
 there was such a group in Roswell's day. With 
 men of this type he formed friendships of a 
 most enduring character. Dr. Hoyt, one of Ros- 
 well's professors in [Auburn Seminary, writes, 
 "Mr. Bates was a loyal, heroic, young soldier 
 on the advance line. He lived a full life and 
 kept the faith, though his years were short. 
 He was unique for his singleness, his faith, his 
 courage, and to him nothing was impossible 
 that he felt ought to be done. His example has 
 been contagious beyond that of any young man 
 that I have known. Many have taken heart 
 over his victories. Young men have felt how 
 
30 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 noble is the task of the ministry. In many a 
 hard hour his example has heartened me." 
 
 During his seminary course he heard Dr. 
 Halsey, then the pastor of Spring Street 
 Church, tell of the Increasing problems which 
 his own an4 all "down-town" churches of New 
 York City were facing, with the influx of a 
 great foreign population and the migration up- 
 town of the church members. The problem of 
 the down-town church made a strong appeal 
 to Roswell Bates, so strong, in fact, that the 
 next time he went to New York City, he walked 
 down to Spring Street and looked at the old 
 church. As he stood there, his heart was moved 
 within him, as he realized the great problems of 
 that section of the city, the solutions of which 
 were being left largely to the corner saloon. 
 Then and there Roswell Bates said to himself, 
 *T want to be a minister to a church like Spring 
 Street." How little did he realize all that 
 Spring Street was to mean to him in the years 
 to come. 
 
n 
 
 THE YEARS OF FULFILLMENT 
 
/ live for those who love me. 
 
 For those who know me true, 
 For the heaven that smiles above me. 
 
 And awaits my spirit too; 
 For the cause that lacks assistance, 
 
 For the wrong that needs resistance. 
 For the future in the distance, 
 
 And the good that I can do. 
 
 — Banks. 
 
 3i- 
 
II 
 
 THE YEARS OF FULFILLMENT 
 
 ROSWELL BATES was ordained to the 
 Christian ministry at Auburn, April 24th, 
 1898, by the Presbytery of Cayuga. The 
 next Fall, he went as assistant to the Church of 
 the Sea and Land, of which Dr. John Denni- 
 son was the pastor. Whoever knows New York, 
 is familiar with the district around Chatham 
 Square. On Henry Street, near the Square, 
 under the shadow of the great Brooklyn 
 Bridge, stands the Church of the Sea and Land. 
 Here Mr. Bates found that for which he was 
 seeking, a chance to help people who really 
 needed help, and a chance to get at some of 
 the big problems of a city's life. The regime at 
 the Sea and Land in those days was severe and 
 ascetic almost to medisevalism, but Roswell 
 Bates threw himself into the work heart and 
 soul. Just enough food, and that the very 
 plainest, was served to the workers. At times 
 dried apples and beans grew monotonous. 
 Clothes were worn by the workers of the church 
 until to have worn them longer would have at- 
 33 
 
34 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 tracted attention. Mr. Bates has said that often 
 he used to put paper into his shoes to stop up 
 the holes, while his suit was nearly destitute 
 of lining. They had made it a point never to 
 refuse admission or a meal to any one who 
 came to the church-house, and at breakfast 
 many a time, they had a company of drunken 
 men and women and street waifs. It was a 
 literal interpretation of the Master's gospel. 
 
 In a letter to a friend, written at this time, 
 Roswell said, "There is something fascinat- 
 ing about the work. When I lie down at night 
 I cannot say the day has been wasted, for each 
 hour brings a task to do for the Master: Can 
 you imagine me playing the part of an express 
 cart down East Broadway, loaded with bags 
 of apples, bundles of clothes, a box with two 
 rabbits, and another with a live chicken, and 
 twenty 'fresh-air' children running around me 
 like so many colts ? Or, do you want a picture 
 of me trudging through the sand at Coney 
 Island, with a baby on one shoulder and one 
 under each arm, and fifteen disreputable-look- 
 ing mothers carrying more babies, as if I were 
 a new edition of Brigham Young? Perhaps 
 you prefer a kodak of me trying to hold up 
 Mrs. Halloran, and to quiet her musical voice, 
 as she shouts to every one that 'she's all right.' 
 and staggers nearly dead drunk, with her hat 
 
THE YEARS OF FULFILLMENT 35 
 
 on hind side before, and her skirt dragging be- 
 hind. What a time I had with her!" 
 
 Dr. Dennison writes of those days at the Sea 
 and Land : "Mr. Bates shrank from no service, 
 no matter how humble or humihating, by which 
 he felt he could help some one of those poor 
 people who then lived on Cherry Street. He 
 seemed to grow in character and in ability to 
 reach the people from day to day, and I shall 
 always count it a great privilege to have had 
 him associated with me. I often look back to 
 the little meetings we used to have together 
 every evening, as to one of the inspirations of 
 my hfe." 
 
 From the Church of the Sea and Land, Mr. 
 Bates went to the Fourth Presbyterian Church 
 of New York as the assistant of Wilbur Chap- 
 man. At the Church of the Sea and Land, he 
 had worked amid conditions of dirt, poverty 
 and ignorance; the atmosphere of the Fourth 
 Church was one of refinement, wealth and cul- 
 ture. Yet Mr. Bates won the same steadfast 
 response from the hearts of the people there, 
 that he had drawn from the poor of the tene- 
 ments. He was looked up to by the young 
 people with devoted loyalty. His ability to 
 adapt himself to any conditions, his under- 
 standing of the spiritual poverty which existed 
 in many a home of wealth, and his earnest 
 
36 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 desire to fill that need, made his ministry one of 
 peculiar power and efficiency. Throughout 
 the years of his later ministry at Spring Street, 
 the Fourth Church always assisted Mr. Bates 
 with friendship and love, expressed through 
 many gifts for his work. At the close of his 
 first year at the church he went with Dr. Chap- 
 man on a tour of the Holy Land. 
 
 On his return from this trip, he was called 
 to the pastorate of the Spring Street Presby- 
 terian Church, situated on Spring Street, near 
 Varick Street, on the lower West side of New 
 York City. As the ministry of Roswell Bates 
 is always associated with the Spring Street 
 Church, and as it was there that his great life 
 work was done, a separate chapter is devoted 
 to these years. He had been at Spring Street 
 only a short time when he wrote : 
 
 "Oh the peace of a life that is happy only 
 when doing His will, where He wills ! I believe 
 I have found my place." 
 
 For over twelve years he was the pastor of 
 Spring Street. 
 
 During these years he made two extensive 
 trips abroad, one through Europe, including 
 Russia, where he visited Count Tolstoi. A 
 companion of this trip thus describes the visit: 
 *Tt was his determination that won us the 
 interview with Count Tolstoi. Mr. Bates had 
 
THE YEARS OP FULFILLMENT 37 
 
 written two letters, one from Stockholm and 
 
 one from St. Petersburg, but had received no 
 
 reply. But that was not enough. We saw the 
 
 American Consul in Moscow, and were told 
 
 that the Consul had just tried to arrange with 
 
 the Count for an interview with the American 
 
 ambassador's wife, but without avail. Even 
 
 this was not enough. Herb determined to meet 
 
 the man whom all the world called the poor 
 
 man's friend. We wrote a final letter, stating 
 
 that on a given day we would get off the train 
 
 at Tula, the nearest express station to the 
 
 Count's estate, and would hope to find a letter 
 
 in the post-office there, letting us know whether 
 
 or not we might have a chance to meet Count 
 
 Tolstoi. We got to Tula, and sure enough, 
 
 there was the letter we looked for. It said, 
 
 'My father is very busy just now, but he will 
 
 be glad to see you for five minutes.* It didn't 
 
 take us long to find our way out on the local 
 
 train and through the woods to 'Merry 
 
 Meadows,' the simple, homelike country home 
 
 of Count Tolstoi. We came expecting a stiff 
 
 formal five minutes in a stiff formal household. 
 
 We found the Countess and an innumerable 
 
 company of children and grandchildren 
 
 gathered around the tennis-court, where a game 
 
 of mixed doubles was going on. A happier, 
 
 heartier, more wholesome crowd it would be 
 
38 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 impossible to imagine. They received us just 
 as if we were neighbors who were in the habit 
 of dropping in every day for tennis, and while 
 the Count was resting they invited us to join 
 in a game. Before the game was over, a ser- 
 vant came out ringing a big dinner-bell, and 
 the party prepared to go in. We were in 
 something of a dilemma, but there was nothing 
 for it but to say good-bye. Imagine our sur- 
 prise when we were told that they were ex- 
 pecting us for dinner, that our places were set 
 at table, and that their father wouldn't hear of 
 such a thing as guests going away, whom he 
 had invited. 
 
 The table was spread on the piazza, with 
 overhanging trees all about. There were some 
 fourteen or fifteen at the table, and we were 
 the only guests. The rest were all children 
 and grandchildren of the family. There was 
 nothing about that meal to indicate the theories 
 that we naturally connect with the name of 
 Tolstoi. True, it was simple, but not more 
 simple than a family of culture, full of energy 
 and life, would have in their country home in 
 the Berkshires or Catskllls. The Count did 
 have different dishes from the rest of the 
 family, but that was only natural for a man of 
 his age, and as for the peasant's blouse, it 
 was the most appropriate garment possible 
 
THE YEARS OF FULFILLMENT 39 
 
 in that sort of free camp-life that all were 
 living. 
 
 But when Herb and the Count really got 
 into conversation, we saw the other side of his 
 nature. The clearness and the boldness of his 
 statements, the eye that seemed to look straight 
 through one and to comprehend future and 
 past all in one view, and the absolute convic- 
 tion of the truth of what he believed, no mat- 
 ter how contrary it might be to what all the 
 world believed, reminded one of the Old Testa- 
 ment prophets. What if we couldn't alto- 
 gether agree with his theories. The man was 
 magnificent in his honesty, in his conviction of 
 the truth of his message, and in his willingness 
 to carry it through to the end. 
 
 And when we walked through the fields 
 after supper, and saw the man among his men, 
 his simple, natural, happy relationship with his 
 peasants, saw the daughter of the Count sit- 
 ting up in the hay-mow with a peasant's 
 daughter, then we felt that we had seen the 
 real man, the man above all his theories, whose 
 heart was even greater than his head." 
 
 It was experiences like this that Mr. Bates 
 sought and appreciated in traveling, meeting 
 men, learning from men, more than seeing all 
 the sights in the world. 
 
 On his other long trip, he visited the Far 
 
40 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 East, with the express purpose of meeting mis- 
 sionaries and seeing them at work. This trip 
 included Japan, Korea, China, the Phihppines, 
 and India. Among the missionaries whom he 
 met on this tour he formed many lasting 
 friendships. His own tremendous enthusiasm 
 for the missionary movement was unbounded, 
 and his personal interest in the missionaries 
 was wonderful. At Christmas-time he never 
 failed to remember scores of them with little 
 gifts, always including the missionary children 
 in the Christmas packages. Each year he in- 
 vited the newly appointed missionaries of the 
 Presbyterian Board to a dinner at the Neigh- 
 borhood House, which was followed by an 
 automobile ride. Some years there were forty 
 in the party. At the Northfield Student Con- 
 ferences, no leader spoke with more fervent 
 or sincere appeal to the college men than did 
 Roswell Bates, when he asked them to face the 
 great needs of the foreign field. 
 
 On a beautiful day in early June of 1909, 
 Mr. Bates and Edith Talcott, the daughter of 
 Mr. and Mrs. James Talcott, of New York 
 City, were married in the Fifth Avenue Pres- 
 byterian Church. Although their earthly Hfe 
 together was limited to four short years, no 
 one can speak of that closing period of his 
 life-work without mentioning Mrs. Bates. 
 
THE YEARS OF FULFILLMENT 41 
 
 They were one and inseparable in their love 
 and service for the Spring Street Church, and 
 in their unselfish devotion to the needs of the 
 neighborhood. Together they made their home 
 the center of a radiant life, and all who entered 
 its portals felt the touch of its influence. Their 
 summer home, outside the city, was thrown 
 wide open to Spring Street friends. All sum- 
 mer long parties of children and tired men and 
 women went from the hot city for a good 
 time in the country. On one Fourth of July 
 when the weather was especially hot, forty peo- 
 ple slept in the house, every available space be- 
 ing brought into use for the guests. And into 
 such a party Mr. and Mrs. Bates threw a spirit 
 of fun and friendliness that made every one 
 feel at home from the smallest child to the 
 old folks. 
 
 In December of 1910 Charlotte came to be 
 a star of hope and ray of light in their lives, 
 and in the lives of a host of others. Mr. Bates' 
 love for his baby girl was exquisite. In his 
 busiest moments when away at some school or 
 college, preaching to crowds of students, he 
 often sat down and turned his thoughts to 
 his little girl. The following letter reveals the 
 heart of Roswell Bates as a father: 
 
42 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 To Charlotte Bates from her Father. 
 
 October 23d, 191 1. 
 Dear little Girlikins: 
 
 Tomorrow you will be ten months old. My what a 
 big girl you are ! and with all your husky little body, 
 you are the dearest, brightest, cleverest, sunniest, 
 little youngster that ever I did see. 
 
 Please tell your mother I wish you were both with 
 me and wish your dear Aunt Ella had come along, 
 though as Mrs. Buehler has five guests I do not 
 know where she would have slept. 
 
 Laugh hard, be my good little Charlotte, with a 
 kiss and a big hug for mother and aunt. 
 
 Your devoted father, 
 
 H. Roswell Bates. 
 
 And the Bates shared their baby with others. 
 Blessed be people who share their babies with 
 others ! We have a baby of our own now, and 
 my wife and I love our baby boy more truly, 
 because back in Spring Street days we had 
 a share in Charlotte Bates. 
 
 Just as an instance of the way Mr. and Mrs. 
 Bates did little acts of kindness, there comes 
 to mind a dear old lady, whose life was lived 
 in a tiny attic room near Spring Street Church. 
 She had no relatives living, and her friends 
 were all at Spring Street. Once she was 
 taken ill in the heat of the summer, and we 
 found her nearly dead, alone in her tiny room. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Bates had her brought at once 
 
The Father 
 
THE YEARS OF FULFILLMENT 43 
 
 to their summer home out in the country, where 
 for one month amid green lawns and country 
 breezes and Charlotte's laughter, she was 
 restored to health and strength. 
 
 In July of 19 12, a son came to add new 
 blessings to the home. For Talcott Bates 
 there was the same outpouring of love as for 
 his sister. From Canada, in a letter dated Jan- 
 uary 23d, 1913, his father wrote to his baby: 
 
 Dear little Boy Mine: 
 
 O what a joy to write those four words! You 
 have my heart all curled up around your very exist- 
 ence. I'm almost afraid to even let myself know 
 how I love you. It seems too wonderful to think 
 you are mine. My daily prayer is that your dear 
 mother and I may live to see you and your precious 
 sister grow to be a quarter of a century old. We 
 want you to have us to help you for I know what it 
 means to "grow up" without father or mother part 
 of the way. 
 
 Dear little boy mine — good-night — God watch 
 over you, little sister, and big, big mother. 
 
 Your father, 
 
 II. Roswell Bates. 
 
 During Mr. Bates' last years at Spring 
 Street, Mrs. Bates meant everything to him. 
 Whatever a wife could possibly do, she did. 
 She was always available for calls, walks, 
 church, everything, and she poured into their 
 
44 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 companionship all the strength and inspiration 
 of her heart and soul. And yet, during their 
 last two years, she knew that he was working 
 beyond his strength, he drove so hard and had 
 so little sleep. When he returned from speak- 
 ing, he was often so exhausted that he could not 
 stand. Always carrying the full weight of 
 others' sins and temptations, he gave his 
 strength to the weak and his sympathy to the 
 suffering, as a person gives his life-blood to 
 renew the life of another. This drain upon 
 his very being was increasingly felt. His 
 family physician had insisted that no human 
 strength could long endure such continuous 
 pressure, and was constantly urging upon him 
 greater care. It was only during the last two 
 years of his life that Mr. Bates would admit 
 that the strain was beyond his strength, but he 
 saw no way to change the circumstances, ex- 
 cept to give up his work at Spring Street, and 
 this he would not do. 
 
 The summer before his death, he went on a 
 canoe trip to Canada with three friends, for an 
 absolute change and rest. He was an experf 
 canoeist himself, and loved the out-door life 
 of the woods and streams. The wilder the 
 woods, the better, and so much the better still 
 if he could feel that no one had ever trodden 
 that path before. A friend says, "I can gee him 
 
THE YEARS OF FULFILLMENT 45 
 
 still, cooking the fish for dinner, for that was 
 a part of the camp life that he reserved as his 
 special prerogative. He had a saying that no 
 one could be counted a good fisherman, if he 
 left his fishing to come in to dinner before his 
 stomach touched his backbone. No one can 
 feel that he quite knows Herb, who hasn't 
 seen him finally emerge from the woods with 
 a two weeks' beard, with every article 'of 
 clothing tied on to keep it from falling off, 
 and with a tan and a vigor that ought to have 
 lasted well through the year for any man that 
 threw himself into his work with less utter 
 abandon of soul and heart, as well as strength." 
 On this last trip to the woods, an incident 
 took place which is related by one of his com- 
 panions. At a camp where they spent the night, 
 just before they took the train to come home, 
 a man and a woman were in charge. They 
 spent all the summer there away from civiliza- 
 tion. The woman, especially, seemed much 
 hardened by her life in the woods. After sup- 
 per, while the rest were busy with their packs, 
 Mr. Bates got into conversation with the wo- 
 man about her religious life. He called the 
 others in and together they had a service in 
 the tent, singing many hymns that had been 
 familiar to her in her childhood. Mr. Bates' 
 words and the Interest he had shown In her. 
 
46 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 meant more to her than anything that had ever 
 come to her in that life in the woods. She said 
 it was the first time any one had spoken to her 
 about Christ since she had attended her own 
 church long years before. For Mr. Bates 
 such interest and such a service were most 
 natural, because everywhere he went he felt 
 that he had a message to deliver. 
 
Ill 
 
 SPRING STREET 
 
 47 
 
The Spring Street Rally Song 
 Tune — Wacht Am Rhine. 
 
 From youth to age, by night by day, 
 
 For help and knowledge, work or play. 
 
 Spring Street with open door has stood. 
 
 One purpose only, doing good. 
 
 And when the storms of life roll high. 
 
 And sorrows rise, temptation's nigh. 
 
 Her voice brings strength and comfort from above. 
 
 Spring Street we serve. Spring Street we love. 
 
 To raise the fallen, cheer the faint, 
 
 To heal the sick and lead the blind. 
 
 She follows in her Master's way, 
 
 And does His very work today. 
 
 With minds equipped, with muscles strong. 
 
 With hearts aglow with joyful song. 
 
 We pledge our loyalty to God above, 
 
 Spring Street we'll serve. Spring Street we'll love. 
 
 — William S. Coffin. 
 
 48 
 
Ill 
 
 SPRING STREET 
 
 THERE are people still living who can 
 remember the day when Spring Street 
 was in the center of a residence district. 
 But things are different now. Around the 
 old church great factory buildings and ware- 
 houses rear their lofty stories, while beneath 
 them long rows of tenements overflow human- 
 ity into the crowded streets. The great fami- 
 lies have moved far up-town and some of the 
 churches went with them. Spring Street 
 stands today in the great factory district of 
 New York City, and Roswell Bates is the man 
 who kept Spring Street where it is. 
 
 When Mr. Bates was called to this pastorate 
 in 1901, there were many people who predicted 
 utter failure, and sincerely believed that it was 
 impossible to keep the church alive in that part 
 of the city. The feeling was rather tense on 
 this point, for many of the congregation who 
 had left the neighborhood wished to have the 
 property sold. Many ministers of the Presby- 
 tery felt that this was a wise course, for most 
 49 
 
50 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 of their own churches had done the same thing. 
 But there were in the Presbytery two men who 
 believed that Spring Street ought to remain 
 where it was. One was Maltbie Babcock, 
 who wrote at this time the letter so much 
 prized by Mr. Bates, urging him to undertake 
 the work. The other man was Dr. George 
 Alexander, who for years had carried on his 
 magnificent work in the University Place 
 Church, which pessimists in 1885 had declared 
 a forlorn hope. As Mr. Bates' nearest Pres- 
 byterian neighbour, Dr. Alexander was al- 
 ways a true and valued friend. 
 
 To the little group of people who still be- 
 lieved that Spring Street Church should stand 
 on Spring Street, Mr. Bates sent the following 
 message, "If God be with us we shall succeed, 
 I accept." For weeks they had been holding 
 prayer-meetings in their homes, asking God to 
 send them the right man for the church they 
 loved. When they received this answer to 
 their prayers, they joyously responded. "The 
 Lord hath done great things for us, whereof 
 we are glad." 
 
 As the families who were left in the neigh- 
 borhood were people of small means and were 
 few in number, there was talk of making 
 Spring Street a ^Mission Church under the 
 Presbyterian Board, but Mr. Bates objected 
 
SPRING STREET 51 
 
 in no uncertain manner. He declared that he 
 would remain the minister of the church, only 
 as long as it continued to be self-supporting. 
 But it was a hard fight. The loyal little group 
 who stood behind Mr. Bates had to sacrifice 
 much that the church might keep its light burn- 
 ing. Some of them went without butter, others 
 without sugar, and one family used only can- 
 dles as light, that they might have more to give. 
 But Mr. Bates had not come to Spring Street 
 to preach the Gospel to saints only; and peo- 
 ple who go without butter and eggs for the 
 sake of the Church of Christ surely have in- 
 visible halos. Roswe'll Bates had come to 
 Spring Street to reach the unchurched in the 
 neighborhood, and there were thousands of 
 them. Especially did he long to get hold of the 
 young men. Soon after his pastorate began, he 
 sent personal letters to a score of young men 
 living in the district, inviting them to a special 
 evening service. He then prepared a sermon on 
 the text, "I have written unto you, young men, 
 because ye are strong." When he went into 
 the pulpit that Sunday evening, he found only 
 familiar faces in the pews, and these were 
 mostly of women. There was one young man, 
 and that young man was up in the rear gallery 
 pumping the organ. Mr. Bates has said that 
 he never felt so much like giving up as he did 
 
52 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 that night. Up-town there was a large church 
 calHng him to be one of its ministers. During 
 every year of the twelve years of his ministry, 
 he received call after call to churches of far 
 greater wealth and larger membership, to posi- 
 tions which offered him several times his salary 
 at Spring Street, and once he was offered a 
 professorship in a university. But he stood 
 by his post. What a testimony to the character 
 of the man and the underlying motives of his 
 ministry ! And in the end he won out. Spring 
 Street became a strong and powerful church 
 with a membership of over six hundred. 
 
 There are many examples of the way in 
 which Roswell Bates drew men to Christ. The 
 first Sunday that he entered the pulpit as pastor, 
 a note was handed to him in the Session Room, 
 telling him that a man at the door of the church 
 wished to speak to him. It was time for the 
 service to begin, but Mr. Bates hurried to the 
 door. There he found a bitter enemy of the 
 church awaiting him. Turning fiercely upon 
 Mr. Bates, he cursed him and the ministry upon 
 which he was entering. A few months later, 
 the young pastor of Spring Street had the joy 
 of receiving this man into the fellowship of 
 the church, on confession of his faith in Christ. 
 
 An outstanding feature of his ministry was 
 the dignity and reverence, yet perfect sim- 
 
SPRING STREET 53 
 
 plicity, of the church services. However rol- 
 licking and full of fun Roswell Bates was out- 
 side the pulpit, no man was more dignified in 
 it. A youthful seminary student, working in 
 an up-town church, once made the flippant 
 remark, "I suppose down at Spring Street 
 the service is like a Bowery Mission meeting 
 without the reverence I like in a church ser- 
 vice." Could that youth have been present on 
 a Sunday morning, and seen the gowned choir 
 of young women enter the church singing the 
 processional, could he have observed the beauty 
 of the whole order of service, he would not 
 have made such a statement. The wife of a 
 clergyman from another part of the country 
 remarked, after being at Spring Street one 
 Sunday morning, that she considered it a won- 
 derful blessing to have a church with such an 
 impressive service in that part of the city. 
 
 Mr. Bates' preaching was always simple and 
 direct. He went after the hearts of men. 
 There was a peculiar eloquence in his appeal 
 and his fund of material in concrete illustra- 
 tion was unusual. He preached "J^^us Christ 
 and Him crucified," and his call was to the 
 souls of men for spiritual and moral decision, 
 rather than for intellectual acceptance of a 
 doctrine. 
 
 As a pastor, Mr. Bates longed to keep in 
 
54 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 close touch with the hearts of his people. This 
 became an increasingly hard problem, for the 
 church had grown rapidly, and its people were 
 constantly changing their residence, many mov- 
 ing out into the suburbs when their incomes 
 allowed it. Mr. Bates, and after their mar- 
 riage, his wife with him, set aside as many 
 evenings as possible in order to call on the 
 people, when the men, who worked during the 
 day, might be at home. These calls were often 
 made on evenings when Mr. Bates was 
 physically worn out by the constant demands 
 made upon his strength since early morning. 
 A former worker wrote to the church after 
 his death, "One event which made a lasting 
 impression upon me I want to share with you. 
 It was during an illness when we lived to- 
 gether in the Annex of the Neighborhood 
 House and I had been helping to care for 
 him. One evening, as he lay on his bed, he 
 asked me to bring him his little book which 
 contained the names of all the members of his 
 congregation. As he held it in his hand, I sat 
 by his side, and he told me of his love for them 
 all. He said, T know what it means when I 
 read those words, "He was a man of sorrows 
 and acquainted with griefs," for I too have 
 tried to carry their sorrows and bear their 
 burdens.' He told me how he used to spend 
 
SPRING STREET 55 
 
 hours on his knees, praying for each one by 
 name, bringing to God their trials and tempta- 
 tions. He said that at first they had been Hke 
 one great family, and then he broke down, for 
 he was very weak at the time, as he told how 
 the church had grown so large that he could 
 no longer bring to God each one by name, and 
 know their burdens as he could before his 
 work had grown to such proportions. That 
 little talk gave me an insight into the heart of 
 a man, who was the kind of minister I longed 
 to become-" 
 
 Some one once said that he believed in Mr. 
 Bates, because he tried to live out the Sermon 
 on the Mount, without debating what the con- 
 sequences might be, or whether it was conven- 
 tional. It was by spontaneous acts of kindness 
 that he became especially endeared to the 
 hearts of his people. One morning after a 
 heavy fall of snow he was late for breakfast, 
 and a friend afterwards discovered that he 
 had stopped to shovel the walk for a frail 
 woman living nearby, who had no one to do 
 it for her. Once when two people were start- 
 ing for a visit to their old home in Ireland with 
 their wee baby, and had engaged passage in the 
 steerage, Roswell went down to see them off. 
 When the ship sailed, they discovered that he 
 had secured cabin accommodations for them. 
 
56 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 At one time, in order to find out just what the 
 City Wood-yard, to which he often sent men, 
 was Hke, he disguised himself as a tramp, 
 went there and worked, till he was overcome 
 by the heat. He had gone to the wood-yard in 
 order to learn whether or not the statements 
 were true, which the men made who begged for 
 bread and work at the Neighborhood House 
 door. When they were given tickets to the 
 wood-yard, they had often said, "No man in 
 our physical condition can do the work. It is 
 too hard for a well-fed man." 
 
 Another strong characteristic of Mr. Bates 
 was his humility. Whenever he had an or- 
 dained assistant, he Insisted on putting him on 
 an equality with himself in every possible way. 
 On all church stationery their names appeared 
 together as co-pastors of the church, and Mr. 
 Bates sought to efface anything which made 
 himself prominent. He had the center chair 
 removed from the pulpit, and left only the 
 two chairs, one on either side, even when his 
 assistant was but a seminary student. He 
 believed that, in the ministry, a man had to 
 fight constantly against conceit and self-praise, 
 and he requested his congregation and his 
 workers to refrain from any congratulatory 
 remarks. 
 
 It was Mr. Bates' custom, at the close of 
 
SPRING STREET 57 
 
 every service In the church, to go at once to the 
 Session Room, remove his gown, and before 
 the congregation had left, to be at the front 
 door with warm-hearted, enthusiastic hand- 
 clasps, and words of cordial friendliness for 
 all who passed him. With what tenderness he 
 would take a little child in his arms, talking 
 meanwhile with the mother, entering into all 
 the details of their home-life, understanding 
 their needs and speaking their vernacular ! To 
 many of these friends and parishioners he was 
 the very spirit of the Christ, for surely the 
 sound of his voice, the touch of his hand, and 
 the love within his eyes, had been their first 
 glimpse of the Christ Himself. 
 
 Throughout the summer months, Spring 
 Street carried on tent meetings down on the 
 water front. Here, night after night, the out- 
 casts of the city streets sat and listened to the 
 Gospel story, and joined in hymns still dear to 
 many of them through childhood memories. It 
 was not always the man or woman who had 
 been brought up amid scenes of crime and dis- 
 sipation, who drifted Into that tent. During one 
 summer, fifteen college graduates were found 
 among those who stayed to the after-meetings. 
 Many a time Mr. Bates came away from that 
 meeting, with his arm around some poor 
 drunkard, and more than once he has walked 
 
58 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 the street for hours, helping some man fight 
 for a victory over temptation. And the time 
 came when he could count among the officers 
 of his church, and among its honored members, 
 those who had indeed been redeemed. There 
 is more than one man who drifted into the 
 outdoor meetings or into the tent, a derelict, 
 and far from the Father's home, who today is 
 preaching in the pulpit of a Christian Church. 
 
 Another phase of the life of the church was 
 the work for the Italians, great numbers of 
 whom had moved into the neighborhood. 
 Through the help of the Presbytery, an Italian 
 pastor was secured, and today there is an 
 Italian congregation numbering over a hun- 
 dred. A loyal and devoted band they have 
 proved to be. Mr. Bates moved among them 
 with the same spirit of Christlike love and 
 brotherhood that he had for his English con- 
 gregation, and Mrs. Bates came nobly to his 
 assistance with her knowledge of the Italian 
 language. 
 
 Soon after Mr. Bates came to Spring Street, 
 he realized that, if the church was to live and 
 grow, it would be necessary to broaden its 
 work. The congregation, however, could not 
 assume a heavier financial burden than was 
 already involved in the support of the church. 
 Holding the members responsible for the 
 
SPRING STREET 59 
 
 management and finances of the church, with 
 the help of friends from outside, he leased 
 No. 239 Spring Street, and started a Neigh- 
 borhood House. It was not long before this 
 house was crowded from top to bottom, with 
 a basement overflowing with clubs of boys. 
 A long lease could not be obtained, and the 
 owners of the property were unwilling to make 
 alterations or improvements. The three-story 
 building was no longer adequate to the needs 
 of Spring Street. Through the generosity of 
 friends, and with the help of two mortgages, 
 Mr. Bates purchased No. 244 Spring Street, 
 and started the present Neighborhood House 
 organization, incorporating it in 1905, under 
 the name of the "Spring Street Social Settle- 
 ment," with a Board of Trustees, of which he 
 himself was the President. A few years later, 
 one of the mortgages was paid off, and the 
 second one cancelled, so that the property was 
 held free of debt. 
 
 No. 244 Spring Street consisted of a five- 
 story front tenement house, which had two 
 stores on the ground floor, and apartments for 
 four families on each of the upper floors. In 
 the rear was a three-story building, which had 
 housed four or five families. The staircase, 
 leading to the second floor of the front house, 
 was put on the outside, on the church property. 
 
60 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 and the ground floor made into one big room, 
 to be used for the daily meetings of the Kinder- 
 garten, to which about fifty children of the 
 Neighborhood come, and for other meetings. 
 
 On the second floor, there is a Day Nursery, 
 where mothers leave their babies from early 
 morning to late afternoon, with the confidence 
 that they will be well cared for. One room 
 contains the twenty-five cots in which the 
 babies sleep. In another room, is the low 
 round table around which they eat their bread 
 and milk, and a third room is used as a play- 
 room for the older children. 
 
 A "model flat" takes up part of the next 
 floor. It consists of a few rooms similar to 
 those in which most of the people in the neigh- 
 borhood live, fitted with inexpensive furnish- 
 ings, and used as club rooms for the girls. One 
 of the rooms contains a small library which is 
 used by the children, and books are circulated 
 in some of the homes. Another larger room 
 on this floor is used as the main club room 
 for the boys. Other club rooms for boys and 
 men are in the Annex or rear building of the 
 Neighborhood House. 
 
 One of the great needs of Spring Street had 
 always been a Gymnasium. There was not 
 enough money with which to buy land and 
 build one, so Mr. Bates arranged to lease the 
 
SPRING STREET 61 
 
 rag-pickers' factory in the rear of 242 Spring 
 Street, to be used as a Gymnasium. The rent 
 of this building was annually paid by the boys 
 of the Hill School. 
 
 Every day in the week the Neighborhood 
 House and Annex are crowded with boys and 
 girls, men and women. There are sewing 
 clubs, cooking clubs, literary clubs, social clubs, 
 debating clubs, dramatic clubs, clubs of every 
 kind for everybody. Almost every evening 
 you can hear the blare of trumpets from the 
 Boy Scouts, for it would be hard to find in 
 all the city a more enthusiastic troop. 
 
 The house is for the neighborhood, and 
 the neighborhood knows it. From top to 
 bottom there is eager, active, happy life. Often 
 it pours into the house in the form of neglected 
 and erring childhood, but it generally goes out 
 to better, cleaner living. 
 
 A free Dispensary is connected with the 
 Neighborhood House, and a nurse from the 
 New York City Mission Society visits daily 
 in the homes of the people. In addition, the 
 services of two other trained workers are 
 given by the City Mission Society. These 
 women spend all of their time visiting in the 
 neighborhood, and in taking charge of such 
 important departments of the work as the 
 large weekly Mothers' Meeting, and the 
 
62 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 Fresh-air work in the summer. The leaders 
 of the clubs are young college students, men 
 and women, some of them living at the Neigh- 
 borhood House and giving all of their time to 
 Spring Street, others volunteer workers from 
 the colleges of the city, or young graduates who 
 are in business in New York. Hence, some 
 of the clubs bear the names of the "Princeton 
 Tigers," the "Elis," and the "Columbia Blues." 
 And the heart and soul and inspiration of the 
 whole house was always the ringing laugh 
 and hearty hand-clasp of Mr. Bates. 
 
 The life of the church and Neighborhood 
 House were closely intertwined. Mr. Bates 
 was the head-worker of the Neighborhood 
 House, and gathered around him a group of 
 young and eager assistants. Of this "family" 
 more will be said later. 
 
 Mr. Bates believed in, and carried to success- 
 ful issue, a policy in settlement work which 
 many social workers consider impossible of 
 success In a Roman Catholic or a Jewish 
 neighborhood, namely, the combining of an 
 evangelistic purpose with the settlement ideal. 
 There are settlements where the workers are 
 practically pledged not to mention the name of 
 Jesus Christ, nor to make any effort whatever 
 to evangelize the people of the neighborhood. 
 At Spring Street, the soul and center of every 
 
SPRING STREET 63 
 
 club, and every activity of the Neighborhood 
 House, was to win men and women into a 
 deeper reHgious faith, and that faith the one 
 that is conquering the world, the faith of 
 Jesus Christ. No one, who ever worked at 
 Spring Street and entered into the fullness 
 of the joy which pervaded the family of 
 workers in its consciousness of the battle for 
 souls, could ever be satisfied to work where 
 lesser ends were sought. When the workers 
 of the Neighborhood House went into wretched 
 homes, they went not only to bring food and 
 clothing, or to put new furniture in the 
 rooms; they went to carry the Gospel of the 
 Living Christ to men and women who above 
 all else needed Him. And the results were 
 what Christ taught His disciples that they 
 might expect with such a faith. They saw 
 eyes blinded by sin and vice opened to the light 
 of a new life, they heard lips dumb through 
 long years break forth into hymns of praise, 
 they saw lives that were maimed, deformed, 
 and shrunken, lifted up into the fullness of 
 children of God. 
 
 Many are the families for whom Mr. Bates 
 has worked out his ideal. He found one 
 mother starving to death with her three little 
 girls, a baby dead from starvation in her arms. 
 Her husband had died in sunny Italy, and. 
 
64 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 with no knowledge of the new land or the 
 strange language, the mother had come to 
 America thinking it a Land of Promise for 
 her daughters, as the father had told her to 
 take them there. Mr. Bates took the mother 
 and three children to the Neighborhood 
 House. As she learned English, she also learned 
 a new faith in God, and her sunny, trustful, 
 childlike love drew many nearer to the 
 Heavenly Father. Many a college student 
 who came to work at Spring Street caught 
 inspiration from her glad smile and radiant 
 faith. Her three daughters graduated from 
 the High School, one of them taking a high 
 scholarship which admitted her to Barnard 
 College, where she is doing good work. 
 
 To aid the people of the parish in their 
 rights, which unscrupulous landlords some- 
 times tried to override, Mr. Bates secured the 
 legal assistance of one of the best lawyers in 
 the city, who gave his help without charge 
 whenever his advice was asked. This lawyer 
 wrote, "Mr. Bates was one of the very few 
 men whom I held in perfect respect, and I al- 
 ways counted him a real friend in the truest 
 sense. His work was so far-reaching, and of 
 such vital importance, and so absolutely un- 
 selfish in its character, that I always felt it 
 an honor when he asked me to serve him, or 
 
SPRING STREET 65 
 
 one of the many to whom he ministered. I 
 never knew a man who accompHshed so much 
 happiness for others, and so I feel that his life, 
 so sadly shortened, has been of more value to 
 mankind in the service of Christ, than that of 
 most people who live to be much older in 
 years. I shall be glad to serve the church 
 and its people in the future as in the 
 past." 
 
 During the last few years at Spring Street, 
 Mr. Bates secured a summer home for the 
 Neighborhood House to which the people of 
 the church and the children of the neighbor- 
 hood might go for happy outings, while hun- 
 dreds of Spring Street children were sent to 
 the country each summer by the Tribune 
 Fresh-air Fund. 
 
 The worker in charge of the summer home 
 the last summer before his death, wrote, "It 
 was the most wonderful and beautiful thing up 
 at Knollwood to see that even the little children 
 thought of Mr. Bates in a vague way as the 
 Guardian Angel of the spot. They thought 
 that he bought everything In the place with 
 his own hands, even the match boxes. Then 
 just the mention of his name in conversation 
 with the older people always brought a light 
 to the eye, and a smile to the face. *0h, he's 
 the best friend I ever had.' 'He came to 
 
66 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 me when my little girl was dying.' 'He has 
 always helped me since my husband was in 
 trouble five years ago.' Always in time of 
 struggle or of pain he had seemed to be their 
 comforter, and had stayed with them through 
 the ups and downs of their hard lives. One 
 Italian girl exclaimed, 'He is so lovely that 
 the room is bright when he is in it.' As a 
 worker who was under Mr. Bates, I believe 
 he seemed greater every year. He had a mar- 
 velous faculty for trusting you and believing 
 in the best of you, and yet he was utterly 
 sincere, and so efficient himself, that he made 
 us feel that we must give of our best efficiency. 
 Until I knew that he would never see Knoll- 
 wood again, I had hardly realized how much he 
 had inspired me to do my best. He had a 
 fine ideal of what the general purpose and 
 spirit of the place should be, and also a 
 wonderful grasp of such matters as the 
 number of servants needed, games for the 
 children, things for house-cleaning, tastes of 
 guests, etc. He was a master of practical 
 detail." 
 
 In 1912, a committee from the Presbyterian 
 Church of Canada visited the United States, 
 to learn what was being done along the lines 
 of institutional church work. One of the com- 
 mittee was the celebrated author. Dr. Gordon, 
 
SPRING STREET 67 
 
 (Ralph Connor). Upon their return to 
 Canada, a member of the committee wrote to 
 Mr. Bates as follows: *''I take the liberty of 
 saying that, after the Rev. Dr. Gordon and 
 Colonel Thompson of Winnipeg, and I, spent 
 ten days in the study of the various sorts of 
 institutional work being done in New York 
 City, and having, as well, visited and given 
 careful attention to various Hnes of work in 
 other cities, such as Boston and Chicago, we 
 were all of the one opinion as to the unique 
 character of the work Spring Street Church and 
 Neighborhood House, under your able leader- 
 ship, are accomplishing. I have found, also, 
 that this opinion is shared by a large circle, 
 rapidly extending, in various parts of both the 
 United States and Canada. You are coming 
 to be regarded as holding a unique place, as 
 a pioneer of the best method of facing the de- 
 plorable conditions in the most difficult part 
 of our great cities. 
 
 "Two serious mistakes are being made by 
 opposite groups of Christian workers. 
 
 "First : There are those who confine their ef- 
 forts absolutely to evangelistic services, aim- 
 ing at the reclaiming of human wreckage. This 
 is a blessed work and a Christlike work, but 
 after all, it does not reach beyond a small num- 
 ber of wrecked lives, and it does absolutely 
 
68 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 nothing to prevent the wholesale continuance 
 in operation of the forces that make for wreck- 
 age. 
 
 "Second : Those who eliminate almost wholly 
 the Evangel out of their mission and message, 
 and confine their attention to efforts aimed at 
 the righting of wrong conditions and at the 
 transforming of the prevailing environment, 
 without attempting, by Divine Grace, the re- 
 generation of individual lives. 
 
 "We who are charged with special responsi- 
 bility in these special lines of endeavor, for the 
 Presbyterian Church in Canada, are unani- 
 mously of the opinion that the course you have 
 taken is the one that gives the largest results 
 and the most enduring results, namely, the 
 union of thoroughgoing New Testament 
 Evangelism, aiming at the transforming by 
 the grace of God of each individual heart and 
 life, and Social Service, aiming at the opening 
 of the door of these hearts for the Evangel, 
 and at the improving of the environment in 
 which these lives are to be lived; but what is 
 more important than the fact that this union 
 of these two lines of endeavor gives the best 
 and most enduring results, is the fact that it Is 
 the method that our Blessed Master followed, 
 as the Gospel records show. As we re-read the 
 New Testament, we cannot avoid the convic- 
 
SPRING STREET 69 
 
 tion, that in uniting Evangelism and Social 
 Service, as you are doing so splendidly in 
 Spring Street Church, we are not trying any- 
 thing new, but getting back to the original 
 method sanctioned by the personal example 
 and by the teaching of the Lord Jesus; and 
 surely that is the all-supreme test." 
 
 Thus did Roswell Bates bring into a neigh- 
 borhood, not merely a social center in the 
 form of teas and clubs, but a center of regen- 
 erating power and the Evangel of a Living 
 Faith. In the words of Mrs. Meigs of the Hill 
 School, *'He had a passion not only for the 
 redemption of souls, but in addition, he had a: 
 passion for the happiness of souls. It is be- 
 cause he longed to bring brightness into dreary 
 lives, to lift heavy burdens from feeble 
 shoulders, and to gladden the hearts of little 
 children, that he gave himself so unreservedly 
 to his work at Spring Street. He took one of 
 the neglected corners of the great city and 
 poured his life blood into it, giving not only 
 the thoughts of his mind and the ministrations 
 of his hands, but himself, the very heart and 
 soul of the man. He lived with and for the 
 people who came to him for help, or to whom 
 he went to give succour, and he entered into the 
 innermost sanctuary of human hearts, and lives, 
 and homes. Roswell Bates has run his race 
 
70 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 with a swifter pace than most of us, but he 
 has Hghted a torch, and placed it in other hands 
 that they might go forward, carrying the Hght 
 he Ht to darkened homes and shadowed hearts ; 
 that they may give, as he gave, the message of 
 God's love to humanity; that they may lift up, 
 as he lifted up, the Cross of Christ, that all 
 may be drawn unto Him Whose he was and 
 Whom he served. 
 
 "To have wrought as he wrought; to have 
 loved as he loved ; to be loved as he is loved ; 
 to have opened the eyes of those blind to God's 
 truth; to have unstopped the ears of those 
 who were deaf to God's voice; to have awak- 
 ened the spirits of those dead in trespasses and 
 sins; to have made crooked things straight 
 and dark places light, is truly to have lived 
 and divinely to have achieved. No one of us 
 would call him back to the limited fields of 
 this earth of ours when he has entered upon the 
 illimitable stretches of life eternal where, as 
 Phillips Brooks said, 'They shall do their work 
 with angelic ease, for the heavenly task shall 
 make heavenly men with heavenly strength.' " 
 
 God has called him to those heavenly tasks 
 in fairer fields than ours, but the work he 
 wrought is not to cease, the torch he carried 
 forward eager hands have taken up, and the 
 doors of Spring Street Church and the Neigh- 
 
SPRING STREET 71 
 
 borhood House remain wide open for the 
 Master's service. For the life of Roswell 
 Bates' earthly ministry goes on, because it was 
 the deathless life of the Eternal Christ. 
 
IV 
 
 THE NEIGHBORHOOD-HOUSE 
 FAMILY 
 
 73 
 
We fight to win, for we fight with God for 
 His children. 
 
 — Jacob A. Riis. 
 
 // is great to be out where the fight is strong, 
 To be where the heaviest troops belong. 
 And to fight for man and God! 
 
 Oh, it seams the face and it dries the brain. 
 It strains the arm till one's friend is Pain. 
 In the fight for man and God! 
 
 But it's great to be out zuhere the fight is strong. 
 To be where the heaviest troops belong. 
 And to fight for man and God. 
 
 — Cleland B. McAfee. 
 
 74 
 
IV 
 
 THE NEIGHBORHOOD-HOUSE 
 
 FAMILY 
 
 IT was the noon meal at the Neighborhood 
 House. Around the table in the dining- 
 room was seated a group of young people, 
 engaged in animated conversation. There were 
 ten of them in all, and they represented as 
 many different colleges in the East and Mid- 
 dle West. At the end of the table where the 
 conversation was most heated the voice of Mr. 
 Bates could be heard, full of an earnestness 
 which was in distinct contrast to the twinkle 
 in his eyes and the kick under the table he was 
 giving to another worker. "Now, really, don't 
 you think it would be just great to have the 
 city establish a free lemonade depot on every 
 street? Just think of what it would mean to 
 the babies, too! Then their mothers would 
 feed them lemonade instead of tea or beer, and 
 I am sure It would be more healthy." Just 
 then, as his quick ear detected a conversation 
 at the other end of the table centering around 
 Fresh-air Work (a forbidden subject at meals, 
 
 75 
 
76 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 just as all conversation regarding the day's 
 routine was prohibited at meal-time) he ad- 
 dressed the leader of the discussion: "By the 
 way, Frank, that's an awfully sporty tie you're 
 wearing this morning. And I'll bet your socks 
 are a vivid green. We'll never make a mis- 
 sionary out of you. Any man that will wear 
 orange ties and green socks!" Then "I beg 
 your pardon," he said, turning to a young 
 Wellesley graduate, dignified by the title of 
 "Resident in Charge," on whose face he had 
 seen a look of annoyance. "You know I hate 
 
 to mention socks at the table myself " 
 
 Hereupon a young man seated on his right 
 broke out with, "Say, Herb, is Mrs. Regan 
 O. K. ? I let her have $2.00 yesterday for 
 an apple-stand license." A roar of laughter 
 greeted this remark, while Herb threw up his 
 hands in mock despair. The Ohio chap had 
 just arrived at the Neighborhood House that 
 week and was new to it all. "Jack, do you 
 mean to tell me that you gave Mrs. Regan 
 $2.00?" "But she cried so, and told me the 
 most pathetic story." A more sophisticated 
 member of the company slyly queried, "iWere 
 her children dying, or her husband sick and 
 out of work?" "Both," ejaculated the Wes- 
 leyan. "Well, after dinner you just run over 
 to 236 and see if her husband isn't the husk- 
 
NEIGHBORHOOD-HOUSE FAMILY 77 
 
 iest sick man you ever saw, and as for Jimmy 
 and Mary, I wish you could have seen them 
 in my club last night!" From the Regans, the 
 conversation drifted on to Woman Suffrage, 
 of which Mr. Bates was an ardent supporter, 
 and there followed a spirited debate, six to 
 four in favor of suffrage. 
 
 The young people around the table were a 
 typical group of Spring Street workers — "the 
 Family," as they always called themselves. !A! 
 quality of friendship apparent in that little 
 circle made it stand out unique in the lives 
 of those who were privileged to share its fel- 
 lowship. Mr. Bates was always the heart and 
 center of it all, guiding, strengthening, en- 
 couraging them with his own indomitable will 
 and sterling loyalty, till they longed to know 
 as he knew, and work as he worked, in the 
 Master's service. As the years passed, the 
 membership of the group was changed, but 
 the spirit remained the same. During those 
 twelve short years at Spring Street, Mr. Bates 
 drew around him more than two hundred 
 young people as workers, some of them for 
 a Christmas or Spring vacation away from 
 their college classes, and many of them as 
 resident workers who spent months or years 
 at the Neighborhood House. These young 
 men and women are out in the world now; 
 
78 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 three of them are in China, two are in Turkey, 
 one is in India, four more sail for the foreign 
 field within a year, and others expect to sail at 
 the completion of medical and seminary 
 courses. Four others are ministers of New 
 York City churches, and more than twenty are 
 serving Christ in the ministry throughout the 
 United States and Canada; and not the least 
 of the old Spring Street group are those who 
 have taken their ideals out into the business 
 world. 
 
 One of these latter was called to a splendid 
 position in a large firm in a western city. In 
 a short time he discovered that all was not 
 right. The goods he was selling were not 
 what they were advertised to be. He went to 
 the president of the firm and told him that as 
 a Christian he could not continue to be a sales- 
 man for the firm, unless the goods were just 
 what they were stated to be in the salesbooks. 
 The president, himself an officer In a church 
 of the city, turned upon the young man and 
 said, "Were we to adopt your policy we should 
 fail. All the other firms which sell these goods 
 do this." The young man resigned. A few 
 days later he received a note from the presi- 
 dent asking him to call at his office. When 
 he reached the office and the door was closed, 
 the older man turned to the younger, and said : 
 
NEIGHBORHOOD-HOUSE FAMILY 79 
 
 "Young man, you may cost this firm a good 
 deal of money, but you have meant more than 
 money to me. We are going to sell goods just 
 as they are advertized." Then, asking the young 
 salesman to kneel with him, he said : "Oh God, 
 I may fail, but if I do, I fail trying to follow 
 the right as I have been given to see it." The 
 firm has not failed as yet. 
 
 On the walls of the Neighborhood House 
 there hangs a picture presented to Mr. Bates 
 by Jacob A. Riis at the time the house was 
 opened, and on the lower margin in the hand- 
 writing of Mr. Riis are these words : "We fight 
 to win, for we fight with God for His chil- 
 dren." These words were often on the lips of 
 Mr. Bates, and were so exemplified in his life 
 that his workers caught the spirit and took 
 this slogan as their own. 
 
 A young minister who turned away from 
 the opening before him in a large and wealthy 
 church, to give all of his time to building up 
 a group of churches among the immigrants 
 of New York City, writes : "We who have been 
 of the Spring Street family know in our 
 hearts as no one else can tell us what its head 
 meant to us. He was peculiarly ours. No 
 one ever really knew Mr, Bates who knew him 
 apart from Spring Street. I can never think 
 of him without thinking 'Spring Street,' nor 
 
80 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 can anyone now, or even in the coming years, 
 think of Spring Street apart from him and 
 his abiding influence. Mr. Bates never al- 
 lowed us to forget that we here were a bat- 
 talion in the great army of God, organized for 
 warfare, defending our faith best by aggres- 
 sive attack where the hosts of sin seemed 
 strongest. I owe a deep gratitude to many 
 forces besides my upbringing at home in 
 training me for my present work, but of them 
 all I owe most to Spring Street and to what 
 I learned there." 
 
 Another old Spring-Streeter, now under ap- 
 pointment to take charge of an entire island in 
 the Philippines group as his missionary parish, 
 says of the year he spent at Spring Street : "I 
 was a fearful combination of egotism, as- 
 ceticism, selfishness and pessimism, when I 
 first met Mr. Bates, and I think he asked me 
 to work at Spring Street because he saw that 
 I needed work done on me. He did his best 
 for me, and it was not his fault if he failed. I 
 never had about me such a kindly body of 
 persons as those whom Mr. Bates had gathered 
 at Spring Street, and I know I shall never be 
 in such a company again. As I look back 
 upon that year, I think there was a change in 
 me. Awkwardly, as one who never tried be- 
 fore, I essayed little acts of kindness, and I 
 
NEIGHBOEHOOD-HOUSE FAMILY 81 
 
 was woefully jealous that others could do 
 them so much better than I. The spirit of Mr. 
 Bates seemed to have caught all of us. He 
 gave Christianity a unique shade, a peculiar 
 tint not to be found elsewhere. Spring Street 
 was not quite mortal or human. The first 
 time I ever saw those mercury electric lights, 
 which are now so common, I wondered if 
 heaven were about that color. Spring Street 
 has always seemed to me to have that ultra- 
 violet, other-wordly, halo about it. It was 
 better than real life, and vastly sweeter; it was 
 too good to be true, yet it was true. One 
 could not have Christianity knocked out of 
 him by a thousand years of German philoso- 
 phy after one year at Spring Street. However 
 scientifically inconclusive it may be, Christian- 
 ity worked at Spring Street. It was a fact 
 there. It was a fact in Mr. Bates. One caught 
 a peculiar conviction that this unseen some- 
 thing has power to capture the world as one 
 saw it catching life after life, where it shone 
 even as it shone in the life of Mr. Bates. As 
 I have longed for the speedy regeneration of 
 the world and wondered how it could best be 
 accomplished, I have found myself Imagining 
 a Roswell Bates settled in every other block 
 in every town. Nobody who ever knew him 
 doubts that that would do it." 
 
82 LIFE OF H, ROSWELL BATES 
 
 In a letter to another Spring- Streeter, 
 written a few months before Mr. Bates' death, 
 there is the tribute of one right in the fight, 
 who wrote from her heart, "I am trying hard 
 to keep Mr. Bates from breaking down, but 
 the task is not an easy one. I am up to my 
 eyes in work, but how I love it more and more 
 all the time. My idea of heaven is getting 
 to be a place where there is a perpetual Spring 
 Street in which to live and work." 
 
 Another young woman has expressed what 
 was in the hearts of all of us who worked at 
 Spring Street, many and many a time. "It 
 wasn't always the things Mr. Bates was that en- 
 deared him to his workers, but often the things 
 he so blessedly wasn't. When I saw him the first 
 time after a short absence from Spring Street 
 he didn't give me a formal greeting, as I fear 
 most pastors would have done, but said, 'Why, 
 bless your heart!' and shook hands in a way 
 that made you know he meant every word of 
 it. He hked us, he really did." 
 
 There is a reference made by one of his 
 workers to a phase of Spring Street which 
 drew us into very intimate knowledge of the 
 inner life of Roswell Bates. Each week we 
 had our ^'Workers' Meeting." Whatever else 
 we missed, we had to be at that meeting. Be- 
 fore we discussed together the work of the 
 
NEIGHBORHOOD-HOUSE FAMILY 83 
 
 week and made plans for the days to come, 
 Mr. Bates himself always conducted a per- 
 sonal talk on the realities of spiritual forces. 
 No one, who sat week by week in that circle 
 and heard him talk to us of the power of his 
 faith, ever doubted the reality of that faith. 
 He always closed that conversation, which he 
 generally based on some Scripture passage, by 
 having us all kneel down and expecting each 
 to offer prayer. This worker writes, "Our 
 prayers at Workers' Meeting may have been 
 an agony to some of us — they were to me — 
 but when it came right down to it, they were 
 not offered to any immediate audience, but to 
 a Friend Whom Mr. Bates had taught us to 
 know and love." 
 
 Not only in groups, but in individual fellow- 
 ship, did Mr. Bates draw his workers into the 
 same intimate communion with God that he 
 himself experienced. Many a man could tell 
 the story written by one of the workers of Mr. 
 Bates' last year at Spring Street. "The more 
 one knew him, the more one loved him. I am 
 sure that was the common experience. I spent 
 one night with him alone at his home, and it 
 all seems as real to me as If it took place 
 yesterday, the kneeling together in prayer at 
 the bedside, the talk which lasted far into the 
 night, our beds pushed close together, and Mr. 
 
84 LIFE OF H. EOSWELL BATES 
 
 Bates reaching his hand out in the darkness 
 to mine. At another time three of us were to- 
 gether. Before we retired, Mr. Bates called 
 us to his bedside, and kneeling between us 
 placed an arm across the shoulders of each, as 
 we joined in prayer. Somehow we went to 
 rest after that experience more secure In God's 
 love and more filled with His peffC€." 
 
 After their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Bates 
 dedicated their home to this same ideal of per- 
 sonal influence for Christ. Their home was 
 always open, and the following is only one il- 
 lustration of an experience which took place 
 many times. A former member of the Neigh- 
 borhood House family writes, "Herb seemed 
 to see into a man's heart and feel for him. I 
 remember one Sunday afternoon when I was 
 trying to conduct the 'Happy Gospel Hour' 
 (which for me was often anything but 
 'happy') while Herb was in the room observ- 
 ing all that was going on. During my story 
 things went fairly well, but my inexperience 
 with such affairs was well demonstrated in 
 the final wind-up, for I made an awful mess 
 of it. The kids broke loose from my control 
 and were noisily 'beating it' for the door be- 
 fore the service was supposed to be over, I 
 felt humiliated more than ever, to have had it 
 happen while Herb was present. I fully ex- 
 
NEIGHBORHOOD-HOUSE FAMILY 85 
 
 pected that he would give me the tip that I 
 must take a brace with that Happy Hour, and 
 I surely thought the calling down was com- 
 ing, when that night after supper Herb called 
 me out into the hall. Instead of what I ex- 
 pected, I received an invitation to go home with 
 him and spend the night and get a good rest. 
 Perhaps he knew that my error was only too 
 manifest to myself, and that a little change 
 and rest would do me good. Anyway, I went 
 home with him and before going to bed had, 
 in prayer with him and his wife, one of those 
 experiences that I love to go back to in 
 memory, as to a place in life's journey where 
 God was very, very near, and where the fel- 
 lowship of His servants was worth all the 
 world. Herb meant a great deal to me. I 
 guess I can only pay it back by trying to play 
 the game better." 
 
 It is difficult to bring these testimonies to a 
 close. Before me lies a pile of letters from old 
 Spring-Streeters, still unused. It has been 
 hard to choose from so many, all bearing wit- 
 ness to the same great central fact, love for 
 Mr. Bates and Spring Street, and the joy of 
 the fight God has given to each one. 
 
 Mr. Bates' love for them never ceased. He 
 'followed them out into life as if they were his 
 children; he shared their joys and their sor- 
 
86 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 rows. If the following extracts from letters 
 he himself wrote to some of his workers seem 
 too personal for the outside world, they are 
 given, that those who knew and loved him in 
 the Spring Street family, may share and renew 
 the old sweet fellowship. A word of apprecia- 
 tion from him meant more than many words 
 from others. 
 
 He relieved the doubt in the mind of one 
 worker, who had been at Spring Street only a 
 few months, and who was appalled by the big- 
 ness of the task, by sending at Christmas-time 
 a card which read: "A more helpful associate 
 I could not ask for. This is just to say I do 
 appreciate all that you are doing — and so does 
 Edith." 
 
 In a letter to a college girl who was working 
 at Spring Street for the summer, who had 
 courageously spoken at one of the large out- 
 door meetings, he wrote : 
 
 Brantwood Hall, 
 August nth, 191 1. 
 My dear Miss Hull: 
 
 Ever since Sunday I have intended to tell yo« 
 how much your out-door talk meant. Often I shall 
 quote your very words, as I have even done already. 
 Your earnest devotion has been an inspiration, just 
 as your happy way of doing things has been re- 
 freshing to us all. You have meant much to our 
 House family. If ever the time comes when you 
 
NEIGHBORHOOD-HOUSE FAMILY 87 
 
 would be willing to work in a Settlement (at starva- 
 tion salary) just let me know. 
 
 Please tell each of the workers the door here 
 stands wide open. Tell them to come up every day 
 they can, and pull it to. The tennis coart will be 
 free and a room will be always ready. 
 
 I hope that some day we may be fellow-workers at 
 Spring Street. 
 Mrs. Bates sends her warm love. 
 
 Believe me always, 
 
 Very sincerely yoars, 
 H. RoswELL Bates. 
 
 To another worker, who had just lost a 
 father, he wrote, "Sorrow to me, in proportion 
 to its greatness, has meant much. Never has 
 Christ revealed Himself so personally or lov- 
 ingly, as in the days when passing through the 
 Valley of the Shadow. Out of great tribula- 
 tion come strength, and bravery, and gentle- 
 ness, and the peace which passeth understand- 
 ing." 
 
 When his former workers sailed for the 
 foreign field, Mr. Bates was always at the boat 
 to see them off, his cheery voice strengthening 
 and encouraging them in the hard moment of 
 parting. The night before Mrs. Harlow and 
 I left for Turkey he took me to his home. His 
 prayer with his arm around me, as we knelt 
 together, his last words of love and inspira- 
 tion, had in them that deathless spirit of devo- 
 
88 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 tion to duty which time cannot dim. If only 
 ministers who have young workers in their 
 churches would earnestly try, as he did, to 
 mean something real in their lives, many a 
 man and woman would go out to their life- 
 work with more unswerving devotion to the 
 cause of their Lord and Master. 
 
 What a great loving heart shines in these 
 words from a steamer letter written to two 
 of his workers: 
 
 Dear, dear Beloveds: 
 
 I have tried to write, but I cannot. I have tried to 
 be funny, but it is impossible. Your faces will always 
 be with me though you are far away. My love, my 
 heart, goes with you. My prayers, night and day, 
 will follow you. You will always be tugging away 
 
 at my best self and helping me. 
 
 Devotedly, 
 
 Herb. 
 
 To this same young couple he wrote later, 
 "You two dear kids ; I wish I had you both in 
 my arms this minute. I suppose if I had you 
 both at once there could be no scandal about 
 it. Yes, our friendship has been wonderful. 
 You have known me at my worst, and have 
 still believed in me and loved me, and that 
 surely is a wonder." 
 
 To the little son of two of his former work- 
 ers he wrote : 
 
NEIGHBORHOOD-HOUSE FAMILY 89 
 
 244 Spring Street, 
 April I2th, 1913. 
 Dear John: 
 
 So yoar father and mother think you are the 
 equal of our small boy. Well, let them keep right 
 on thinking so, but though you cannot begin to touch 
 our boy, I know you are the dearest boy in Asia, 
 and I know I love you half to death, though I 
 haven't laid eyes on you. If you look like your 
 father, I know you are very pretty, and I wonder if 
 you have the dangling curls your father used to 
 have when they called him 'the darling little boy.' 
 
 I put three slices of love in this letter, one for your 
 mother, and one for your father, but the biggest is 
 for you. I like to send love, for you don't have to 
 pay duty on it, and when I know anyone as I do 
 your father and mother, it is very easy to send it in 
 bunches. 
 
 Devotedly, 
 
 Your ancle, 
 Herb. 
 
 In the years to come other workers will 
 gather around the table in the Neighborhood- 
 House dining-room, for the spirit which Ros- 
 well Bates revealed to Spring Street is not 
 dependent upon the earthly presence of a man. 
 It is the spirit of the ever-working, ever-liv- 
 ing, ever-present Christ. 
 
V 
 
 FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH 
 
 91 
 
Yea, though I walk through the valley of 
 the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for 
 Thou art with me. 
 
 — Psalm 23. 
 
 Greater love hath no man than this, that 
 a man lay down his life for his friends. 
 
 —John 15: 13. 
 
 92 
 
V 
 
 FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH 
 
 THE story of Daisy Lopez is one which 
 reveals Mr, Bates' insight into hidden 
 values in the lives of those vi^ith whom 
 he came in contact. Not only among men and 
 women of university training did he see the 
 capacity for growing into the image of his 
 Lord and Master, but he saw those same values 
 in lives shut in by walls of darkened attic 
 rooms in tenements, or lives losing moral bat- 
 tles on the corners of the city streets. In this 
 he was like the Master whom he served. The 
 story of Daisy Lopez is not chosen because the 
 transformation of her life from a little 
 orphaned street waif into an earnest worker 
 in the Christian Endeavor Society and Sunday 
 School of Spring Street Church is any more 
 wonderful as a testimony to the power of 
 Christ, than many another story in connection 
 with the personal work of Mr. Bates among 
 the tenements of lower New York. This story 
 is chosen because of the miraculous swiftness 
 of her transformation, and because she bore 
 
 93 
 
94 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 heroic witness to the steadfastness of her faith 
 in a tragic death, when she might have chosen 
 life instead of suffering and pain. 
 
 The first time that Roswell Bates saw Daisy 
 Lopez, she was just a waif of the streets, with 
 a soiled and tattered black dress clinging to her 
 half-starved little form, a black shawl thrown 
 over her head. There is always something ap- 
 pealing in the face of a child, especially if that 
 child is dirty and hungry and motherless, with 
 nothing but the streets for a playground and a 
 bed in a dark corner of a tenement house to 
 call "home." Daisy Lopez was just such a 
 child when he first induced her to come to one 
 of the clubs in the Neighborhood House. And 
 then it came to pass that on cold winter nights 
 at the close of the Sunday services in Spring 
 Street Church, you would often find Daisy 
 waiting at the door, her pathetic face looking 
 up into the soft, kind eyes of Spring Street's 
 pastor, and begging for a few pennies. At this 
 time Daisy was working in a shirt-waist fac- 
 tory, toiling away for a few dollars a week. 
 
 The dawn of a new day broke across Daisy's 
 life on the 30th of May, 1908. It was a holi- 
 day, and the young people of the church and 
 Neighborhood House had been invited to 
 spend the day at the house whicH Mr. Bates 
 had secured at Rye, on Long Island Sound. 
 
FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH 95 
 
 Daisy had accepted the invitation with a light 
 in her eyes, and she happily said, "And I'll 
 wear a white dress." The day was one long 
 happy dream for her. She was clean, she wore 
 a pretty white dress, she met young people 
 of her own age, dressed neatly, with joyous 
 faces. She was treated as one of their num- 
 ber, no longer an outcast on the street, for 
 Mr. Bates not only gave her his own friend- 
 ship but opened up to her other friendships to 
 make paths of beauty through the desert of 
 her soul. It was her conversion. She told 
 Mr. Bates afterward that it was the turning 
 point in her life. 
 
 Mr. Bates lived in those days on the top 
 floor at the rear of the Neighborhood House, 
 and his rooms overlooked a row of dirty rear 
 tenements and their back-yards. Night after 
 night he saw a light in one of those tenement 
 windows. At times that light would burn till 
 two in the morning; always till past midnight. 
 Daisy Lopez lived there. Little by little, as 
 her confidence in his friendship grew, Mr. 
 Bates learned the story of her life, and why 
 her light was still burning so late at night. 
 
 She had been born in London of an English 
 mother and a Spanish father. Her mother 
 had died when Daisy was hardly past her 
 babyhood, and the family moved to Jamaica, 
 
96 LIFE OF. H, ROSWELL BATES 
 
 where they were living when the terrible earth- 
 quake shook that island to its foundations and 
 took hundreds of lives. At that time, though 
 only a mere child, Daisy was engaged to a 
 young soldier in the forces stationed on the 
 island. In the earthquake he was killed, as 
 were many of her friends. Out of the wreck 
 of the httle they had, Daisy and her two sisters 
 came to New York, where her sisters married. 
 Left alone, without mother or father, she was 
 starving for love. The real transformation in 
 her that day at Rye had not been one of 
 clothes and cleaner face. These were but the 
 outward signs of an inner awakening of spirit 
 and soul. Not that she had been conscious 
 that day of any great longing for God's friend- 
 ship. Rather it must have been a craving for 
 human companionship such as she had never 
 fully known. Around her was sunshine, hap- 
 piness, life. Behind her was darkness, loneli- 
 ness, stagnation. Instinctively her spirit cried 
 out to enter into this new radiance, to it she 
 reached out her arms, and in it she found God. 
 It was this spiritual transformation which 
 caused the light to burn in her window at mid- 
 night. 
 
 She told Mr. Bates how she spent her day. 
 At six she rose and cooked her breakfast in 
 the little attic room under the old roof. She 
 
FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH 97 
 
 prepared a cold lunch and hurried to the fac- 
 tory, where she worked from seven in the 
 morning till six at night. She went home, and 
 after supper left again for night school. After 
 returning from school late, she sat at the old 
 table under the dim light of an oil lamp, work- 
 ing away till after midnight, in order to pre- 
 pare her lessons for the next day. She was 
 doing this that slie might prepare herself for 
 greater efficiency in the service of others, for 
 by that time she had come into the fellowship 
 of the church and had caught its vision. 
 
 To bring men and women to Christ and not 
 to himself was the burning passion of Mr. 
 Bates. He was not one of those who, for the 
 sake of popularity, would slide into the subtle 
 treason of seeking honors which should be 
 given to his Lord. To him it was a corona- 
 tion day when those, whom he had won 
 through long and desperate conflict with the 
 forces of evil, knelt at the altar of the Spring 
 Street Church and made glad confession of 
 their new-found faith in Christ. 
 
 The winter after Daisy was received into 
 the church, there was organized for the chil- 
 dren of the neighborhood an afternoon Sun- 
 day School, of which she became an en- 
 thusiastic teacher. Many of the children were 
 Italians; hatless, ill-fed, — ^waifs of the street. 
 
98 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 as Daisy had been, but her own class was com- 
 posed of fourteen bright girls from better 
 homes, and her devotion to these girls was re- 
 markable. Several of her class later united 
 with the church. 
 
 Daisy still worked at the' shirt-waist factory,' 
 but she had risen, step by step, till she had be-, 
 come the forewoman on her floor. . She had 
 moved from the old tenement to a boarding- 
 house. She was active in the Saturday Even- 
 ing Literary Club at the Neighborhood House 
 and was an officer in the Christian Endeavor 
 Society. One feature of the society at that 
 time, which was Mr. Bates' own idea, was 
 the social hour and supper at the close of 
 the Christian Endeavor meeting on Sunday 
 evenings. Many of the young people of the 
 neighborhood had no place they could really 
 call "home," and this gathering In the cozy 
 club-rooms of the Neighborhood House was 
 an hour looked forward to by all. Many of them 
 never forgot those happy evenings. It did not 
 matter how tired he was, Mr. Bates was al- 
 ways the center of a happy group, as they sat 
 eating sandwiches or drinking cocoa. The re- 
 finement, the versatility, the wholesomeness, 
 the humor, yet the reverence of his conversa- 
 tion, held these young people in a charmed 
 
 circle. 
 
FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH 99 
 
 Several of that group have married since 
 and founded Christian homes. What a depth 
 of loving foresight there was In Mr. Bates, in 
 giving to them such an atmosphere and such 
 surroundings in which to form the great abid- 
 ing relationships of their lives. And it was 
 as a member of this circle that Daisy entered 
 into a happy chapter of her life, a chapter 
 which filled her with radiant joy. To her there 
 came the love of a noble, pure-hearted man. 
 He had come from Switzerland to study the 
 lace industry in America, that his knowledge 
 might help him when he returned to the firm 
 which sent him out. He boarded in the neigh- 
 borhood, he came to Spring Street. In that 
 last winter of her earthly life, Daisy promised 
 to become the wife of this young man. They 
 were quietly married in the Spring Street 
 Church, in January of 191 1. Two weeks later 
 the husband sailed away to join his firm in 
 Switzerland, and in the early summer, when 
 the little home would be ready, Daisy was to 
 follow. 
 
 It is not necessary here to go over the story 
 of the awful fire which swept in a few min- 
 utes through the three upper stories of the 
 Asch Building, where, out of the furnace of 
 flame, girls leaped to death on the pavements 
 
100 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 below, or fought wildly and vainly to tear open 
 doors which had been locked. 
 
 When Mr. Bates heard of the fire, knowing 
 that Daisy was the forewoman on the ninth 
 floor of that building, he made every effort to 
 discover whether or not she was safe. Soon 
 a telephone message came saying that she was 
 in the hospital. 
 
 Sunday, the 26th of March, 191 1, was a 
 sad day for the city of New York. Over one 
 hundred girls lay dead or dying, as a result of 
 the terrible calamity of the previous day. The 
 story of the closing hours of this young 
 woman, who was so near and dear to all at 
 Spring Street, is taken for the most part from 
 her own lips, as she related it to Mr. Bates. 
 
 When he entered the room in the hospital 
 where Daisy lay, the screams and moans of 
 other suffering girls filled the air. Daisy was 
 quiet, her lips moving in silent prayer. The 
 doctor and several nurses told Mr. Bates that 
 they had never seen such faith as this young 
 girl's, in the midst of pain and in the face of 
 death. Her body was a helpless wreck, but 
 she was saying over and over, "My Father, oh, 
 my Heavenly Father." Soon she recognized 
 her pastor, and immediately asked, "Were 
 there many girls hurt? Oh, I am so afraid 
 there were." And then she began praying for 
 
FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH 101 
 
 the girls who had been hurt in the fire, for the 
 famihes who had lost loved ones, for the 
 church, and for her husband. Sweetly and 
 clearly, after her prayer, she repeated, so that 
 the whole ward listened, those beautiful words 
 of the Twenty-third Psalm : "The Lord is my 
 Shepherd; I shall not want . . . Yea, though 
 I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of 
 Death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with 
 me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me." 
 
 And then she began to talk a little of her- 
 self. "I should love to live," she said. "I 
 should love to make a home for Henry, but 
 God knows best. Tell my husband that I have 
 been true to him. Tell them at the church that 
 I am abiding under the shadow of His wings." 
 
 Little by little the story of that last scene 
 in the factory came out. The fire started a 
 few minutes before the bell was to ring for 
 closing. Daisy was putting her things away 
 when the cry of "fire" rang through the hall 
 below. She was near the elevator and could 
 have been one of the first to go down, but she 
 was forewoman, and, looking into her room, 
 the sight of the panic-stricken girls amid the 
 smoke and flame, now gathering headway at 
 terrific speed, seemed to call her back as the 
 Voice of God. Back into the room she went, 
 and springing upon a tabb called to the girls 
 
102 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 to keep calm, while she struggled over to the 
 fire-escape. There the girls were fighting and 
 in terror. Pushing them back with almost 
 superhuman force, making them go one at a 
 time, she counted forty girls pass her to safety. 
 Then the flames swept across and all she could 
 do was to jump for the fire-nets, nine stories 
 below. The net saved her from instant death. 
 
 On Monday afternoon a member of the 
 Spring Street choir went over to the hospital 
 to sing to her. But she was beyond the hearing 
 of earthly music, for she had passed from the 
 pain and mystery of earth to her Heavenly 
 Home. 
 
 No service in honor of beloved dead was 
 ever more impressive nor more filled with the 
 note of victory than that in honor of Daisy. 
 [As the choir girls, some of the members of 
 Daisy's own Sunday School class, came up 
 the aisle singing, each laid an Easter lily on the 
 casket, and once more the pastor of Spring 
 Street Church committed unto God a jewel 
 for the King's crown. 
 
VI 
 
 HIS WORK IN THE SCHOOLS 
 AND COLLEGES 
 
 X03 
 
God give us men. The time demands 
 strong minds, great hearts, true faith and 
 willing hands. 
 
 — Holland. 
 
 X04 
 
VI 
 
 HIS WORK IN THE SCHOOLS AND 
 COLLEGES 
 
 THIS is an age of hero-worship in the 
 schools and colleges of America. The 
 great athletic contests now conducted on 
 such a large scale, the natural love for the hero 
 inborn in the heart of youth, but more than 
 these, the growing idealism in our school and 
 college life, have been the influences which have 
 brought this to pass. It is no longer the man 
 who makes the fifty-yard run for a touch- 
 down, nor the man who can stroke a winning 
 crew, who is most admired by his fellow-stu- 
 dents. He must be more than a good ground- 
 gainer, more than a man of mighty muscles, 
 if he is to be truly a leader of men. The statue 
 on the Princeton campus bears witness to this 
 growth in the requirements of the college hero. 
 On the face of that student there is not only 
 the stamp of the athlete, there is also the light 
 of intellectual power and of spiritual aspira- 
 tion. Probably no other force in our American 
 college life of the past two decades has so much 
 105 
 
106 LIFE OF H. EOSWELL BATES 
 
 helped to put this spiritual earnestness into the 
 requirements of student leadership, as the 
 Young Men's Christian Association. And one 
 of the most potent methods used by the As- 
 sociation to accomplish this, has been that of 
 bringing to the colleges and placing before col- 
 lege students, men worthy to be hailed as 
 heroes in the truest sense, men who are out 
 on the battle-line against vice and corruption 
 wherever the enemy is pressing hard. 
 
 Of the men who have stood before such stu- 
 dent audiences, with the appeal of strong 
 lives back of their message, no man in the past 
 ten years entered more deeply and whole- 
 heartedly into the life of the schools and col- 
 leges than did Mr. Bates, and to none did the 
 students give greater loyalty. He came from 
 Spring Street and stood before them, a young 
 man not long out of his own college days. 
 After they had looked into his face and heard 
 his story, they said, "Here is a man" And 
 when a college man says that, there is not much 
 higher praise that he can give. 
 
 In the words of Mr. Robert E. Speer, "Mr. 
 Bates was one of the most influential Christian 
 personalities working among our Eastern 
 students. He knew very well their type of 
 mind and attitude toward life, and combined 
 the spirit of playfulness and the spirit of ear- 
 
HIS WORK IN THE SCHOOLS 107 
 
 nestness in a way that enabled him to meet the 
 students on their own ground, and to deal with 
 them as one who could distinguish between 
 their follies and their earnest questionings. He 
 came to be a very effective speaker, all the 
 more so because when he began to speak it 
 was not easy for him. He was ready to make 
 any sacrifice of personal comfort, or interest, 
 or time, in order to reach human lives, and was 
 always on the watch for hopeful men who 
 might be drawn on into Christian service. Such 
 men he would work with personally, winning 
 their friendship, and bringing them on to his 
 church in New York City, to show them what 
 a place there was for them, and how sure they 
 might be, in spite of any sense of disqualifica- 
 tion, that God could use them, if they would 
 give themselves to Him. Mr. Bates' supreme 
 interest was the deeply religious interest. Stu- 
 dents felt that his touch on life was broad and 
 sure, but they knew, also, that his one concern 
 was for the things that are deep and that 
 abide." 
 
 It was soon after he had taken up his work 
 in New York that the great colleges of the 
 country threw open their doors to this young 
 minister. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, the Uni- 
 versity of Pennsylvania, Amherst, .Williams, 
 Pennsylvania State, Michigan, Toronto, 
 
108 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 Queens, Smith and Bryn Mawr, were among 
 the colleges which listened to his burning 
 message. Through the preparatory schools 
 he passed as a flame of fire. The boys of the 
 Hill School, Hotchkiss, Lawrenceville, Mer- 
 cersburg, and others, eagerly vowed allegiance 
 to anything Roswell Bates had to say. It was 
 simply because Roswell Bates had a capacity 
 for friendship, which few men who came to 
 the colleges possessed, a gift rarely to be found 
 and earnestly to be coveted. Some one has 
 said of him: "Probably the greatest good that 
 Roswell Bates ever wrought was not in bring- 
 ing cheer to lonely hearts and helping to re- 
 lieve penury in tenements, but in gathering 
 around him, even as the Master of old, a band 
 of young disciples, to whom he committed as 
 unto faithful witnesses the Gospel of the living 
 Christ." 
 
 A concrete illustration of this capacity for 
 winning college men to himself is given in that 
 which took place on a North Atlantic liner 
 while he was returning from one of his foreign 
 trips. It was on the "Princess Irene," bound 
 for New York. When the ship sailed, Mr. 
 Bates noticed a group of particularly lively 
 college boys among the passengers. To his 
 amusement, one of the group came up behind 
 him and slapping him familiarly on the 
 
HIS WORK IN THE SCHOOLS 109 
 
 shoulder, said : "Say, old chap, we've got 
 seven in our crowd and there are eight seats 
 at our table. We don't want some old duf- 
 fer stuck in with us; we're out for a good 
 time and you look as if you were our kind 
 all right. Won't you take the extra seat?" 
 Ml. Bates eagerly accepted this informal 
 invitation, and found himself at dinner with 
 a rollicking lot of fellows intent on get- 
 ting all the fun possible out of the trip. Dur- 
 ing the meal they poked fun at many of the 
 other passengers, and at last some one spoke 
 up and said: "And, say, fellows, who do you 
 suppose this man Batts is, the Reverend 
 Batts?" The crowd looked at the passenger 
 list and then proceeded to pick out which of 
 the passengers was the "Reverend Batts." The 
 search was highly interesting, but unsuccessful 
 as to conclusions, much to Mr. Bates' delight, 
 though he had eagerly joined in the search for 
 the "Reverend Batts." At the close of the 
 dinner, just as the men were rising to leave, 
 Mr. Bates remarked : "Well, this is too bad, all 
 you fellows look so bright and yet couldn't 
 find the Reverend Batts. Now I discovered 
 him." And then he introduced himself, say- 
 ing, "But I spell my name with an e and pro- 
 nounce it Bates." 
 
 He won the hearts of the fellows at once, 
 
110 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 and throughout the trip led them in games 
 and sports till they felt that they had been 
 friends for years. And with some of them he 
 had found time and fitting opportunity for 
 personal talks. On one of the last days of the 
 happy trip one of the men came up to him 
 and asked him to come to his cabin alone. 
 There in the cabin he told his new friend of 
 the blow which had just come to him. A' 
 cable had summoned him home to take his 
 father's place in a large business concern and 
 to be his mother's stay, for the father had died 
 very suddenly. Shrinking from the new re- 
 sponsibilities, the boyish heart had sought re- 
 lief in the merriment of the crowd. But in 
 Mr. Bates' friendship he had found a new 
 challenge to lay hold upon life, and to get a 
 new grip on himself. And Mr. Bates was 
 able to help him enter into his business career 
 with the love of God to inspire him as he took 
 up the new responsibilities from which he had 
 shrunk. 
 
 He could make a student feel that he was 
 his most intimate friend in that college, and he 
 could mean it, too. There was no cant 
 about him. College men abhor hypocrisy of 
 any kind, and most of all in a minister. Mr. 
 Bates* life shone clear and true. He never 
 made men feel that he was preaching "at" 
 
HIS WORK IN THE SCHOOLS 111 
 
 them, but somehow he had a way of making 
 a man whose life was full of meanness feel 
 terribly upset. 
 
 However, it was not so much in his 
 big meetings, powerful as he was as a 
 platform speaker, but it was in small groups 
 that he was at his best. Once at Yale 
 Mr. Bates had spoken in the large meeting, 
 and one of his student friends had invited him 
 to a fraternity house for the evening, "to get 
 in touch with a small group of the fellows." 
 He was new at Yale then and they had not 
 "sized him up," so after the dinner one after 
 another of the fellows came up and asked to 
 be excused for the evening. But before the 
 crowd had broken up they were sitting for a 
 few minutes around an open fire. Mr, Bates 
 felt that his opportunity had come. No man 
 was more constantly on the alert for such mo- 
 ments than he. He began a conversation. The 
 men forgot their excuses and no longer felt 
 that their engagements were pressing. Mr. 
 Bates drifted from one subject to another 
 while the group listened spellbound. Looking 
 down at his friend seated on the floor beside 
 him, Mr. Bates saw that his head was bowed 
 and knew that he was praying for him. Then, 
 in a stillness that was unbroken, save by his 
 strong, tender pleading, he began to present 
 
112 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 to those fellows the claims of Christ. Some 
 men, great and Christian men, would not have 
 pressed such claims that night in that frater- 
 nity group. But he could do it, and do it in 
 such a way that men stayed and listened and 
 went away to think and to make decisions. 
 When Mr. Bates' voice ceased speaking, a fine 
 big freshman detached himself from the 
 group, and coming over to him, gripped his 
 hand and said with intense earnestness, "Mr. 
 Bates, I want to stand for those things here 
 at Yale." That freshman became the great- 
 est athlete Yale has had in ten years, and he 
 stood in the life of the college for the things 
 he said he would stand for that evening in the 
 fraternity house. 
 
 A letter from President Garfield, of Wil- 
 liams, gives a glimpse into the way in which 
 Mr. Bates used most of his time when spend- 
 ing Sunday at a college. "It was my mis- 
 fortune not to know Mr. Bates until the time 
 when he came here to preach, and, as you 
 know, the several Sundays afforded little op- 
 portunity for the development of the kind of 
 thing that would most suitably go into a 
 biography. This was more particularly true 
 in Mr. Bates' case because of the way in which 
 he devoted himself to the students during his 
 visits. He was greatly liked and eagerly sought. 
 
HIS WORK IN THE SCHOOLS 113 
 
 On the occasion of each of his visits he was 
 detained by the men long after the adjourn- 
 ment of the evening meeting, and on at least 
 two occasions students came to the house with 
 him, staying late into the night in conferences 
 evidently very personal in their nature. He 
 drew college men to him in a remarkable 
 way." 
 
 How easily he might have spent those even- 
 ings in the restful yet stimulating atmosphere 
 of the president's home, with a clear con- 
 science, after a hard day's work with the col- 
 lege preaching services. But while a single 
 student needed his help or his friendly counsel, 
 he was at the command of the students. The 
 sad moral defeats in the lives of men who 
 should have been conquerors were to him 
 burdens to be borne in anguish, and the desire 
 to help these college boys overcome their 
 battles forced him into their soul struggles as 
 if the conflict were his own. He was a man 
 who wrestled with God for the souls of 
 men. 
 
 The same testimony comes from Dr. Harris, 
 the former president of Amherst, who writes : 
 "While I was president of Amherst College, 
 Mr. Bates came every year to preach In the 
 college chapel. No one was more heartily 
 welcome than he. When he spoke at the 
 
114 LIFE OF. H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 Christian Association meeting the room was 
 always packed. He would tell of his work in 
 New York, or the temptations of young men, 
 or the opportunities for service in a great city. 
 In the afternoon and in the evening after the 
 service he visited the fraternity houses and the 
 dormitories, where groups of students gathered 
 around him in eager questioning. It would be 
 midnight before he returned to my house, tired 
 and happy. He was an eager, aspiring, de- 
 voted soul, with a wonderful enthusiasm, and, 
 withal, a fine sense of humor." 
 
 President Hyde, of Bowdoin, said of his 
 visits among their college community: "He 
 was one of the most Christlike spirits I have 
 ever known. We shall miss him sorely as col- 
 lege preacher." 
 
 !At the University of Pennsylvania, v/here 
 they were undertaking social work with a 
 splendidly equipped university settlement, un- 
 der the leadership of Mr. Thomas Evans, Mr. 
 Bates was called in as adviser, and for some 
 winters he made regular trips to Philadelphia, 
 when he not only preached to the college stu- 
 dents, but spent much time in going over the 
 work of the settlement. 
 
 Each year Mr. Bates spent two weeks in 
 (5anada, speaking in the colleges and giving a 
 course of lectures at Knox College, Toronto 
 
HIS WORK IN THE SCHOOLS 115 
 
 University. President Gandier says of his work 
 there : "Having visited us five years in succes- 
 sion, Mr. Bates' practical talks to students and 
 professors had become a regular feature of 
 our college life. No man ever came to Knox 
 who was more warmly welcomed, or made a 
 deeper impression, and I know of no other 
 man who could have returned year after year 
 as Roswell Bates did, to talk upon the same 
 general theme, without growing stale. His 
 sympathy, the simplicity and sincerity of his 
 nature, the way in which he gave of his best 
 to all to whom he talked, made him equally 
 attractive and equally compeHing whether 
 among college students or in a Gospel-tent 
 service in lower New York. He combined 
 the mysticism of the mediaeval saint and the 
 organizing ability of the modern business 
 man. No life-work can be measured by years, 
 and it is doubtful if four-score years of 
 careful, wisely modulated effort could have 
 touched half as many lives, or set in motion 
 one tithe as many spiritual forces, as the two- 
 score years in which Roswell Bates recklessly 
 poured out his life's blood for God and man. 
 We, who, with all care and forethought and 
 wise adaptation, plan for ourselves noble, well- 
 regulated careers in life, occasionally need a 
 spirit and life such as Roswell Bates to shake 
 
116 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 us out of our carefully planned but stilted, con- 
 ventional professionalism." 
 
 At his old seminary Mr. Bates was always 
 a welcome speaker. In a letter from President 
 Stewart, of Auburn, the following incident is 
 related: "I distinctly recall the time he ad- 
 dressed the seminary during our Commence- 
 ment, when he gave as the missionary address 
 an account of his work at Spring Street. He 
 held for an hour the audience that crowded our 
 chapel, many of whom were former fellow- 
 townsmen and schoolmates. The address had 
 a profound effect." 
 
 To Mr. Bates' power in the young women's 
 colleges. Dr. Burton, of Smith, bears testi- 
 mony: "Mr. Bates was one of the few men 
 who gripped powerfully our entire student 
 body and whom we loved to have at Smith 
 College." The Instructor In Athletics at Bryn 
 Mawr writes: **What Bryn Mawr will do 
 without him I cannot think. He always lifted 
 us out of the slough of selfishness, and his 
 spirit seemed to dwell with us and keep us up 
 to the mark all the rest of the year. His work 
 and influence can never die out, but will live 
 on among us forever." 
 
 This chapter would be incomplete were there 
 no testimonies from the preparatory schools, 
 for Mr. Bates enjoyed his work among the 
 
HIS WORK IN THE SCHOOLS 117 
 
 boys of the preparatory schools as much as any 
 service he rendered. His love for them and 
 their love for him took visible form when the 
 Hill School boys gave the gymnasium to 
 Spring Street. 
 
 Two of the friendships that he prized most 
 were with Dr. John Meigs, of beloved memory 
 to every Hill School boy, and with Mrs. Meigs. 
 At the time of Dr. Meigs' death, his letter to 
 Mrs. Meigs shows his capacity for entering in- 
 to the heart experience of another. 
 
 Dear Mrs. John : 
 
 This is to tell you that during these Christmas 
 days we are helping you, by the spaceless, timeless, 
 invincible ministry of prayer. What a wonderful 
 Christmas this is for him with his Christ. 
 
 Of Roswell Bates' life and influence among 
 the Hill School boys, Mrs. John Meigs says, 
 *Tn reviewing the life of a man like Roswell 
 Bates, one is often led to ask what was the 
 secret of his influence? It is not found in the 
 breadth of his mind, nor the devotion of his 
 spirit, nor even in the strength of his char- 
 acter, for long before these qualities were 
 recognized, one felt the charm of his in- 
 dividuality and yielded to its spell. The secret 
 of Roswell Bates' influence lay in the fact that 
 the qualities of his mind, the earnestness of his 
 
118 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 spirit and the fineness of his character, were 
 all permeated with the power of personal mag- 
 netism, and that power, which drew high and 
 low, rich and poor, old and young, to him, 
 was used to lift up Him who said — 'And I, if 
 I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me.' A' 
 man with all the qualities that made Roswell 
 Bates good and strong, without his personal 
 magnetism, or a man with it, but lacking his 
 consecrated spirit, could never have had the up- 
 lifting influence he exerted on all who came 
 into intimate relationship with him. It was the 
 combination and consecration of all these 
 forces that explained his power of leadership 
 and his largeness of influence." 
 
 From the Hotchkiss School, Dr. Buehler 
 sends this glowing tribute : "Long before I met 
 Mr. Bates, a number of people told me that 
 I ought to try to get him up to Hotchkiss to 
 speak to the boys, because he was the 'right 
 kind.' I first met him at one of the student 
 conferences at Northfield, and asked him If 
 he would come. He instantly replied, 'I would 
 love to.' 
 
 "As a guest in our home at Lakeville, Ros- 
 well was always perfectly charming, and Mrs. 
 Buehler and I always looked forward eagerly 
 to his coming, found delight in his presence, 
 and felt sorry to see him go. He was the soul 
 
HIS WORK IN THE SCHOOLS 119 
 
 of every company that he was in, always 
 bright, hearty, witty, buoyant, entertaining and 
 uplifting. Mrs. Buehler and I loved him dearly, 
 and so did every other Hotchkiss person who 
 knew him. 
 
 "As a preacher to young men he was one of 
 the best — fluent, direct, pointed, lucid, sincere, 
 convincing, uplifting, memorable — These are 
 the adjectives that come to my mind when I 
 think of his preaching in the Hotchkiss Chapel. 
 
 "Three special pictures of Roswell at Hotch- 
 kiss will always stand out in my memory : 
 
 "The first was on the occasion of his first 
 visit to the school. The boys were completely 
 captivated by his morning sermon, and many of 
 them eagerly seized the opportunity offered to 
 come over to my house and talk to him after 
 dinner. He sat in our green-room with a score 
 of boys around him, and held them like 
 charmed birds while he chatted with them, tell- 
 ing them about his experience, his failures, his 
 views of life and its combination of humor 
 and tragedy. 
 
 "The second special picture in my memory 
 is of how he arrived at my house from New 
 York one wintry Saturday night. He had 
 just thrown off his overcoat and was about to 
 sit down to a good, warm supper, which was 
 waiting for him, when some of the boys 
 
120 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 stopped at the house to see me on their way 
 to the Ore Hill Club, which they established 
 and conducted for the benefit of the sons of 
 the miners at Ore Hill. After hearing part of 
 my talk with the boys he requested more in- 
 formation, and immediately said he would like 
 to go with the boys. When his attention was 
 drawn to the waiting supper, he said he wasn't 
 hungry and would much rather go to Ore 
 Hill, which he did, coming back with the boys 
 about ten o'clock, glowing, happy and enthu- 
 siastic, having given them all a wonderful 
 evening. 
 
 "The last special picture in my memory was 
 on the occasion of his last visit to Hotchkiss. 
 After two splendid sermons, he asked me to 
 say to the boys that if any of them cared to 
 come over to see him in the evening he would 
 tell them some stories. I think 150 boys 
 eagerly accepted the invitation and streamed 
 over to my house after supper. I thought they 
 would never cease coming, and wondered 
 where we should put them. It was clear that 
 the only boys who did not come were those 
 who could not. The large Headmaster's study 
 was crowded to its capacity. Roswell stood at 
 one end with his back to the fireplace while 
 the boys sat around in every conceivable at- 
 titude. They sat or lay on the floor. They 
 
HIS WORK IN THE SCHOOLS 121 
 
 sat on the backs of the davenports. They sat 
 on each other's laps. They stood along the 
 wall. It was a most interesting and beautiful 
 sight, as for more than an hour he told them 
 stories of New York City life. 
 
 "Roswell was a rare spirit. His unselfish- 
 ness was complete, and he made others feel 
 the joy of it. Jesus Christ was very real and 
 dear to him, and he made others feel His 
 beauty and nobility." 
 
 Mrs. Irvine, the wife of Dr. Irvine, of 
 Mercersburg, tells for us a beautiful little 
 story related to the boys on one of his visits 
 there. "He told us a story of a little flower 
 in Sweden which in their language is called 
 'Love-me-up,' because if you scratch the snow 
 away from its roots in the early spring before 
 the thaws come to melt it away, the sun will 
 love it up into bloom. Thus, he said, we must 
 warm frozen hearts by our love until we have 
 loved them up to God. That was the way he 
 did himself, and our boys — you know we have 
 400 of them — hung on his words. They could 
 hardly wait for him to come again. His ser- 
 mon on 'Surrender' was one of the best I have 
 ever heard for boys." 
 
 There are a multitude of tributes which 
 might be added to this gleaning. All of them 
 reveal the versatility, the power, the faith, the 
 
122 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 love, in the life of this winner of souls. May 
 the college men and the boys of the schools 
 who listened to his message prove loyal to the 
 trust committed unto their cjiarge. 
 
VII 
 THE COLLEGE CONFERENCES 
 
 123 
 
Oh dear and lovely Northfield, 
 What memories round thee cling. 
 
 For here the Lord hath taught us 
 A new, glad song to sing. 
 
 — Northfield Hymn. 
 
 124 
 
VII 
 THE COLLEGE CONFERENCES 
 
 TO speak of Roswell Bates' work among 
 the schools and colleges without giving 
 some insight into his influence upon stu- 
 dents, with whom he came in contact at the 
 Summer Conferences, would be to tell but half 
 the story of his winsome power over such men. 
 On the banks of the Connecticut, at North- 
 field, by the lake at Eaglesmere, or at Winona, 
 his presence among the students helped many 
 a storm-tossed, doubting soul to find the 
 Father's waiting arms of love. As in his visits 
 to the colleges, his most helpful work was not 
 done through the addresses from the public 
 platform, but in intimate talks with small 
 groups, and above all in his constant personal 
 work during the Conference days. Few men 
 at the Northfield student gatherings did as 
 much self-sacrificing personal work as did Mr. 
 Bates. 
 
 His class, which met morning by morning 
 to discuss the problems of the city, was always 
 the largest of the Mission study groups. Many 
 125 
 
126 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 a college boy went out from that group with 
 a new vision of what a man's life ought to 
 mean to a world where sin and vice are waging 
 relentless warfare against the forces of purity 
 and holiness. 
 
 To many men who went to Northfield dur- 
 ing the past decade, one of the most outstand- 
 ing memories of those Conference days must 
 be a picture of Herb Bates coming across the 
 campus dressed in immaculate white flannels, 
 with tie and socks of the latest fashion, a white 
 shirt starched just enough, a hat with the 
 stamp on the inside that you knew read "Real 
 Panama," with a dozen or more fellows in his 
 devoted train, his arms around as many as he 
 could get within his reach. To see Herb Bates 
 walk half a mile on Northfield soil without a 
 group of students at his heels was indeed an 
 unusual sight. It is not out of place here to 
 speak of his care in dress. This man, who In 
 his settlement work at the Sea and Land often 
 wore clothes full of patches, shoes that had 
 paper in them to stop up the holes, and strings 
 where shoe laces should have been, because he 
 believed that he could get nearer the hearts of 
 the poor in the neighborhood by this method, 
 who would have made a wonderful ascetic 
 monk had he lived In the middle ages, felt in 
 his later work that his hold upon men was 
 
o 
 
 u 
 
THE COLLEGE CONFERENCES 127 
 
 stronger if he took pains to dress well. To 
 him it became a religious duty. He selected 
 his ties before going to the Conferences with 
 as much care as he chose the illustrations for 
 his talks. More than one college man has 
 written since his death that the first thing that 
 attracted him to Mr. Bates was his care in 
 dress. There was much truth in the following 
 lines sung on the Conference platform one 
 "stunt night" when the Conference leaders 
 were being taken off by a group of students: 
 
 "Here's to Herbert Roswell Bates, 
 His socks and ties are always mates, 
 His Panamas and flannels white, 
 Attract the students left and right." 
 
 As Herb said to some of us who knew him 
 well, "Do you know I should just love to have 
 been a sport." How well I remember his call- 
 ing me into his room on more than one oc- 
 casion just before he was leaving for some col- 
 lege, and saying, with just the slightest twinkle 
 in his eyes, which we saw so often and always 
 loved to see, "Now, honestly, Ralph, which of 
 these two ties is the more stunning?" And then 
 he would pull out a drawer and there the two 
 ties would be laid out side by side ; "stunning" 
 they invariably were. What heated discussions 
 we used to have in the Annex there at Spring 
 Street as to whether a blue tie and black socks 
 
128 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 were more stylish than the same tie with blue 
 socks. Herb rather leaned to the blue ones. 
 But if a man can be said to dedicate his clothes 
 to the service of God, without seeming too 
 pious, this can be said of Roswell Bates. His 
 sole aim, his constant prayer, throughout the 
 Conference days, and during long weeks pre- 
 ceding them, was that he might be used, and 
 used mightily, of God among the students. To 
 lay hold of men and lead them to Christ was 
 always and everywhere his burning passion. 
 With him it was no faintly flickering flame ; it 
 was a consuming fire possessing every fiber 
 of his being. At the close of the last Confer- 
 ence he ever attended at Northfield, the sum- 
 mer before his death, he wrote to Mr. Mott : 
 
 The Neighborhood House, 
 244 Spring Street, 
 
 July 1 2th, 19 12. 
 My dear Mr. Mott: 
 
 I have sent to Mr. McMillan a list of 53 names of 
 men, to whom I have asked him to send the two 
 little booklets concerning which you spoke to me. 
 It will be a gratification to you to know that between 
 10.30 and 12.45, after the last Round Top Meeting, 
 50 men came to me from the after-meeting for inter- 
 views. The results at Northfield this year seemed to 
 indicate that in the past we have failed to realize how 
 many attend the conference who are not Christians. 
 As nearly as I can make out, 175 men accepted Christ 
 at Northfield this year, many of whom did not even 
 pretend to be believers. I believe these men are 
 
THE COLLEGE CONFERENCES 129 
 
 dead in earnest and that 150 of them will not only 
 remain firm in the Faith but will live lives worthy 
 of the name of the Savior. I have taken great pains 
 in making this estimate and believe you can count 
 upon it as being a fair conclusion. 
 
 Thank you heartily for your friendship and for 
 letting me have a small part in the work at North- 
 field, and please give ray warmest regards to John. 
 Very cordially yours, 
 
 H. RoswELL Bates. 
 
 In reply to this letter, Mr. Mott wrote : 
 
 Entrelac p. O. 
 Prov. of Quebec, Canada, 
 
 July 27th, 1912, 
 Dear Bates : 
 
 Your most kind letter of July 12th has been for- 
 warded to me in the woods of Canada. I rejoice and 
 thank God with you over the wonderful results 
 accomplished at Northfield, largely due to faithful 
 personal work. In this friendly ministry God used 
 you in a more signal way than any other person. 
 It has been upon my mind and heart to write you 
 a special letter expressing my own deep appreciation 
 of the unselfish and devoted way in which you placed 
 yourself at the disposal of men in need. It was a 
 Bplendid example of Christlike service. In some 
 ways I am inclined to think that your ten days' 
 service at Northfield has been the most productive 
 piece of Christian work which has come to my 
 attention in recent years. May God enable us to 
 associate our efforts many years in this blessed 
 service. With best wishes, 
 
 Very cordially yours, 
 John R. Mott. 
 
130 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 The following incident is an example of the 
 unselfish efforts Mr. Bates put forth to win a 
 man to Christ. At that last conference at 
 Northfield he was especially praying for a 
 young Harvard man. The Conference drew 
 to a close, and still the man had taken no 
 definite stand. On the morning of the last 
 day, Mr. Bates awoke early and could not sleep 
 for the thought of that man who was still un- 
 decided. Rising an hour or two before break- 
 fast, he went to the man's room, wakened him, 
 and pressed upon him the appeal of Christ. 
 Far from being offended by this intrusion, the 
 man's heart was touched that Mr. Bates should 
 care so much, and at breakfast Mr. Bates was 
 overflowing with joy because the man had 
 promised that very day to declare openly his 
 allegiance to Jesus Christ. It was one of the 
 most inspiring things of that Conference to 
 hear this young man stand up before a crowd 
 of his fellow-students, gathered for a final 
 Bible Study Conference later that morning, and 
 frankly make his confession of loyalty to 
 Christ. 
 
 At the Conferences another side of Roswell's 
 magnetic personality had full play, his gift for 
 fun-making. Few men possessed such an over- 
 flowing supply of humor. As all those who 
 have attended the Summer Conferences for stu- 
 
THE COLLEGE CONFERENCES 131 
 
 dents, know, one night is called "stunt night." 
 All the pent-up spirit of youth runs riot then, 
 and yet has none of the features which have 
 often marred and stained college men, and 
 brought disgrace upon institutions, at the close 
 of a triumphant football contest, or the cul- 
 mination of a successful season. At North- 
 held the fun and humor go hand in hand with 
 reverence for body and spirit. And Herb 
 Bates was the centre of the fun. It is hard to 
 think of "stunt night" at Northfield without 
 him, figuring as an Indian, in all the war-paint 
 and feathers, or dressed as an old Irish woman, 
 with shawl, bonnet and umbrella. 
 
 Dr. Buehler, of the Hotchkiss School, tells 
 his impression of one of these occasions : "At 
 the Conference I was deeply interested in see- 
 ing Roswell's sympathy and adaptability and 
 capacity for friendship. At the Fourth-of- 
 July celebration he dressed up as an African 
 chief and delighted the entire audience with his 
 amusing antics. I found it hard to believe that 
 the ludicrous figure on the platform was the 
 spiritual and serious-minded Roswell Bates. 
 As I left the auditorium that evening I over- 
 heard a young girl say, 'Isn't it fine that they 
 can have such a good time and be such good 
 Christians.' " Herb taught a lot of men that 
 fact — that a man can be an earnest disciple of 
 
132 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 Christ and at the same time have the best sort 
 of fun in hfe. 
 
 One incident which stands out fresh in 
 memory occurred during the Conference for 
 the Middle Atlantic States held at Eaglesmere, 
 Pennsylvania, in the summer of 191 1. It was 
 my privilege to room with Mr. Bates. One 
 day I unfolded the plans of the Columbia 
 crowd for "stunt night," for they had asked me 
 to take charge of their "stunt." Herb went 
 into raptures over it. I think we liked to take 
 ever}'thing to him because he was always so 
 enthusiastic. The "stunt" was this: A huge 
 tank filled with water was placed on the plat- 
 form with a board over the top. This board 
 was so arranged that any one who sat on it 
 could be dumped headfirst into the tank up 
 to his heels, when the man behind the curtain 
 loosened the rope which kept the board in place. 
 On this board we were to put a Freshman 
 dressed in fantastic style and blackened like a 
 negro. Over his head was a small hole. At 
 the proper time I was to appear as a fakir at a 
 side show and offer "three shots for a nickel." 
 Behind the hole was a tin can. When this was 
 struck the poor lad on the board was to get a 
 ducking to the overwhelming joy of the ap- 
 plauding students. The proceeds of the show, 
 it had been advertised far and wide, were to 
 
THE COLLEGE CONFERENCES 133 
 
 be handed over to the Chairman of the Con-, 
 ference and his bride, to defray the expenses 
 of their recent honeymoon. When the event 
 was "pulled off" the young husband was offered 
 the first three shots free of charge. Amid the 
 intense excitement which followed, Herb 
 sidled up to me and whispered that he was 
 "game" to sit on that board. 
 
 After the Freshman had been soused amid 
 thunderous applause, it was announced that 
 a great example of self-sacrifice was needed. 
 "Who would volunteer to take the Freshman's 
 place to help out the poor young couple?" Of 
 course I knew that Herb would offer himself. 
 As he started toward the platform, Luke Mil- 
 ler of Princeton started forward at the same 
 time. Herb won the race and took his place on 
 the board. There he sat in his neatly pressed 
 white flannels, his silk hose, his immaculate 
 shirt and tie, with a rapturous grin on his face. 
 Missionaries from India and China disgraced 
 themselves, as they fought with Y. M. C. A. 
 leaders and college athletes to get fiirst throw. 
 So great was the excitement by this time that 
 most of the audience were standing on the 
 chairs. Sam Higgenbottom, an old Princeton 
 baseball player, now doing marvelous work 
 among the lepers of India, paid for six throws 
 and missed them all. Herb sat there smiling. 
 
134 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 Man after man grew red in the face trying to 
 hit that elusive little hole. At last Tom Evans 
 of Pennsylvania stepped up. It was plain that 
 he "had it in" for Herb. Herb had "bossed" 
 him down at the settlement in Philadelphia, 
 and now his turn had come. Tom remarked 
 that something was going to happen, and it 
 did. A ring as the ball struck the tin, a splash, 
 silk socks in the air, and such a blubbering as 
 you never did hear, while the crowd went wild. 
 That night, after the last bonfire had died out, 
 the members of the Columbia delegation were 
 still shouting, "What's the matter with Mr. 
 Bates? He's ALL RIGHT. Who's all 
 right? MR. BATES!" And when Mr. Bates 
 stood before that college crowd and drove 
 home one of the closing messages of the Con- 
 ference, some of us knew, as he did himself, 
 that men listened a little more intently to his 
 appeal. 
 
 Northfield and Eaglesmere will continue, but 
 the face of Roswell Bates will be sorely missed 
 by many a man who returns to live the old 
 days over, the days when in the peaceful valley 
 of the Connecticut, or by the lake among the 
 hills, he found his Lord because another man 
 had yearned for his soul. That man has now 
 gone on to the service where he sees face to 
 face the Master of his life, the Great Captain 
 of his fight. 
 
VIII 
 FROM DARKNESS INTO LIGHT 
 
 135 
 
Out of my bondage, sorrow and night, 
 
 Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come; 
 Into Thy freedom, gladness and light, 
 
 Jesus, I come to Thee; — 
 Out of earth's sorrows into Thy halm. 
 Out of life's storms and into Thy calm. 
 Out of distress to jubilant psalm, 
 Jesus I come to Thee. 
 
 — Sleeper. 
 
 136 
 
yiii 
 
 FROM DARKNESS INTO LIGHT 
 
 ONE morning Roswell Bates received a 
 note in the mail which read very 
 strangely. It v^^as on delicate note- 
 paper and v^^as from a woman. It said that the 
 writer was in great trouble, but she believed 
 that he might be willing and able to help her. 
 If he was willing to help the unhappiest woman 
 in the world he was to take an afternoon train 
 for a certain surburb of the city and he would 
 find her at the station. 
 
 Not knowing what the note might mean, 
 Mr. Bates took the train mentioned, sure that 
 if the writer was sincere it was his duty to re- 
 spond to this call for help from a soul in dark- 
 ness. The station of that little New York sub- 
 urb was practically deserted when he stepped 
 off the train, but a man dressed in the 
 livery of a coachman approached him and asked 
 if he were Mr. Bates. He was then taken to 
 the other side of the station, where a high phae- 
 ton was waiting. On the seat sat a woman 
 dressed in black, and heavily veiled. Telling 
 137 
 
138 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 the coachman that he might go, she asked Mr. 
 Bates to take the seat beside her, and they 
 started on their strange ride. He was unable 
 to see the woman's face because of the heavy 
 veil, though she turned occasionally and looked 
 at him. Not a word passed between them for 
 some time. The woman drove the horses skil- 
 fully through woods and past meadows, by 
 beautiful country villas, but there was no sign 
 of reaching a destination nor of her opening 
 a conversation. All of ]\lr. Bates' attempts 
 proved failures. Finally, he suggested that it 
 was time to return. The woman started, and 
 said, "Oh, yes!" and turned the horses back 
 towards the station. Soon they approached a 
 magnificent residence which told of wealth 
 and luxur}^ The woman turned the horses 
 into the driveway and drew them up in front 
 of the door. Being asked to enter, Mr. Bates 
 found himself in a beautiful home. The woman 
 ordered the servants to bring tea. She hardly 
 spoke a word all this time, and immediately 
 afterwards drove Mr. Bates to the station, 
 where he caught the train for New York. He 
 had been amazed at this experience and thought 
 that possibly some one had played a joke on 
 him, though he was unable to fathom the mys- 
 tery. He himself had acted in good faith. 
 More light, however, was thrown upon the 
 
FROM DARKNESS INTO LIGHT 139 
 
 situation the next day when the postman 
 brought another letter in the same hand- 
 writing. The letter asked that the writer 
 be forgiven for her silence of the prece- 
 ding day, stating that she had thought Mr. 
 Bates was a man of middle age, but that 
 when she had seen him as a young man she had 
 felt that it was impossible to open her heart 
 with all its painful secrets to him. Upon 
 further thought she had again decided to ask 
 his help, and if he would be at home that 
 afternoon she would call. 
 
 That afternoon the young woman came to 
 see him. Her face told him that she was in 
 deep distress, and that her sorrow had in it 
 an element of utter hopelessness. And then 
 she told him her story. The story of this 
 college girl is only one of the multitude that 
 he listened to with tender comprehension and 
 carried on his heart till he had helped to lift 
 the burden from the bearer, or brought light 
 into the darkness of the soul in need. 
 
 Her family had been wealthy as long as 
 she could remember. Money had been at her 
 command since her baby days to do with as 
 she had pleased, and the best that art and music 
 and travel could bring to her had been laid at 
 her feet. She had been graduated recently 
 from one of the best colleges in the East and 
 
140 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 then had gone to Germany, where she had 
 friends who were people of influence and 
 power. She had been received by the Emperor 
 at court. 
 
 And then a terrible awakening had come to 
 her soul. A' cablegram called her home to the 
 bedside of her dying father. She reached 
 America in time for the funeral. In the car- 
 riage with her on returning from the cemetery 
 were her mother and brother. Her brother 
 and she had been chums from childhood. With 
 the exception of the young society man to 
 whom she was engaged, her brother was the 
 one person in the world she really loved. He 
 was then a student in college. Before leaving 
 the carriage he told them that drink was send- 
 ing him to ruin, that so close a hold did the 
 terrible habit have upon him that he was al- 
 ready literally a drunkard, and that he had 
 resolved that from the day of the funeral they 
 should never set eyes upon him again. He 
 kept his word. He disappeared, and no trace 
 of him had ever been discovered. 
 
 When the husband's and father's will was 
 read, and when the estate was gone over, the 
 mother and daughter found that their entire 
 fortune had been swept away through stock 
 gambling. Between mother and daughter 
 there was little sympathy. And then there 
 
FROM DARKNESS INTO LIGHT 141 
 
 came a letter from the man to whom she was 
 betrothed. It was a short, sad revelation. He 
 stated that owing to the fact that her fortune 
 had been swept away, his own income was 
 too small to support them both in the way 
 she would need to live, and so he asked to be 
 released. Money, not love, had held him to 
 her. But more tragic than all of these bitter 
 trials was the fact that from her earliest child- 
 hood she had been brought up not only without 
 religious faith, but trained to scorn all belief 
 in spiritual realities. She was now as one 
 "without hope and without God." She closed 
 her heartrending story with, "I am the most 
 unhappy woman in the world. I would gladly 
 take my life, but I am too great a coward. Is 
 there anything you can do for me?" 
 
 It is of interest to know that this young 
 woman had originally heard of Mr. Bates 
 through a relative of his who had spent a 
 previous summer at a fashionable resort. 
 There the girl had heard the story of his 
 wonderful work among the poor of lower 
 New York at the Church of the Sea and Land. 
 The story had deeply impressed her. It was 
 a life of which she had no experience, and in 
 her hour of need, the story of this young minis- 
 ter and his faith returned to her as a possible 
 
142 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 ray of hope in her darkness. It was thus that 
 she had come to Mr. Bates with her appeal. 
 
 He won her at once by his understanding 
 sympathy and his sincere desire to help. He 
 told her, as he always tried to tell those in 
 trouble, that there was One, and only One, to 
 whom she might turn, and that was Christ. He 
 asked her to read her New Testament. She 
 replied that during her college course she had 
 studied the New Testament in Greek in order 
 to prove the fallacy of all Christian claims, 
 but she was willing to do anything Mr. Bates 
 asked of her. He told her to read each day 
 a few verses from the Gospel of John, and to 
 try to believe the reality and the truth of what 
 she read. He then gave her a list of the names 
 of about twenty families in the poorest quarter 
 of lower New York, and asked her to visit one 
 of these families each day until she had called 
 on them all. This would take her about a 
 month. She promised to do all of this as 
 best she could, and went away. Throughout 
 the month Mr. Bates prayed earnestly to God 
 that what he had told her might be a means 
 of bringing her to Himself. 
 
 Her experience during that month was a 
 trying one. On the first afternoon, as she en- 
 tered a dirty street filled to overflowing with 
 ragged children, mothers with babies in their 
 
c3 
 
FROM DARKNESS INTO LIGHT 143 
 
 arms crowding the sidewalks, the smells from 
 old garbage cans and from the tenements op- 
 pressive in the air, her heart cried out in anger 
 against it all. It beat in upon her for the 
 first time ; the misery, the poverty, the dirt, the 
 smells, and she exclaimed: "If there be a God, 
 cursed be that God who makes such things pos- 
 sible." But she kept on with her work. 
 
 The first family on the list lived in one of 
 the dirtiest tenements, on one of the most 
 crowded streets. It was an Irish family. The 
 young woman knocked timidly at the door, 
 and received a growl to enter. She had never 
 seen such a sight before — dirty, unwashed 
 dishes scattered around the table, the whole 
 place in confusion such as only the poor who 
 lack character can create and endure. It stag- 
 gered her. Seeing the marks of wealth about 
 her visitor, the occupant of the room began to 
 tell a pitiful story of rent unpaid and the dis- 
 possessing of the family within a few days. 
 At last the girl drew out a bill and left it with 
 the woman. 
 
 The next day she went to visit another fam- 
 ily. Here again were poverty and hopelessness. 
 After this call she returned to see how the 
 first family was getting along. As she climbed 
 the stairs, coarse laughter poured from the 
 room where she had left the money. She found 
 
144 LIFE OE H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 a group of women in the room, most of them 
 drunk, with bottles standing around every- 
 where. She reahzed that the woman had 
 merely played upon her sympathy. Sick at 
 heart, she went down the stairs and out into 
 a greater darkness than that of the night. 
 
 Thus the month passed. Day by day the 
 terrible need pressed in upon her, day by day 
 the anger and resentment in her heart grew. 
 But she determined to keep her end of the 
 promise, and Roswell Bates was keeping his. 
 
 At last the end of the month arrived, and 
 only one family remained on her list. Not a 
 home that she had visited but was poverty- 
 stricken and wretched. Yes, and not one of all 
 that list knew aught of the presence of Christ's 
 friendship and His cleansing love. They were 
 homes without God and without hope. Mr. 
 Bates had intended that this should be the ex- 
 perience through which she should go. 
 
 And now she had come to the last day of 
 the promise, to the last family. As she walked 
 down the street her heart was filled with the 
 bitterness of failure. She climbed the stairs 
 in a tenement and knocked at the door. A 
 sweet voice called, "Come in," and she entered. 
 Here in the same neighborhood with the 
 dirty apartments she had visited, in a tene- 
 ment like the others, she found herself in a 
 
FROM DARKNESS INTO LIGHT 145 
 
 home, neat, clean, and attractive. 'A table 
 with a fresh white cloth was set for a meal 
 in the center of the room. Two bright- faced, 
 well-dressed, happy children were playing on 
 the floor. The mother, sweet of face, came 
 forward and took her hand, saying : "We were 
 just sitting down for lunch. Won't you 
 stay?" Overcome by this sudden transition 
 from distress to happiness, she sank into a 
 chair. Suddenly she noticed a silence. The 
 heads of the children were bowed, and to- 
 gether they offered a little prayer of thanks to 
 God. When the simple meal was finished, 
 and the children had run off to school, the 
 girl began to talk to the mother. She asked 
 how it was that their home was so different 
 from all those in the surrounding tenements 
 in which she had visited. 
 
 Then the mother told her story. It had 
 not always been that way, oh no. Once their 
 home was as bad and even worse than most 
 of the homes in the neighborhood. Both she 
 and her husband drank and quarrelled, the 
 children had few clothes and little to eat. And 
 then a change had taken place. One night 
 her husband came home sober. He said that 
 he was never going to drink again. Down 
 at the church some one had talked to him, and 
 asked him to join the "i\Ien's League." He 
 
146 LIFE OE H, ROSWELL BATES 
 
 promised to live a different kind of a life. 
 His wife laughed at him. She gave him two 
 weeks to keep straight. He kept straight a 
 year. He was a changed man. There were 
 better food and more clothes for the children. 
 A year from the time that he had taken the 
 step towards a new life, she went with him to 
 the church. Now they were both active mem- 
 bers. "We found Christ," the mother said. 
 "He changed our Hves and led us to God our 
 Heavenly Father." And then she asked the 
 young woman to pray with her. The girl could 
 not. How could she? For she had never 
 been taught even a child's prayer, but she 
 opened the Testament which Mr. Bates had 
 given her and read from it. 
 
 When she reached home that night, she 
 locked the door of her room and fell upon her 
 knees. "Oh God, if there is a God, and I doubt 
 if there is, oh help me to believe just for one 
 day in the reality and beauty of Christ's life and 
 message to the world!" 
 
 One bright Sabbath morning, as Roswell 
 Bates was preparing to go into the pulpit of 
 the Spring Street Church, a note was handed to 
 him. It read : "She who six months ago was 
 the most unhappy woman in the world is this 
 morning the happiest. I have found Christ, 
 and today I unite with His church." 
 
IX 
 
 PROSPICE 
 
 147 
 
He came from God, to God returns-^ 
 
 Should we complain? 
 No, but we ask Thy help, dear Lord, 
 To bear the pain. 
 
 Though he has only gone before 
 
 A little while, 
 Yet how we miss that brave strong face. 
 
 That winning smile! 
 
 We know that he is with the Lord 
 
 He loved, on high. 
 And dwells in joy and tireless 
 
 Activity. 
 
 He showed us here how Christ the Lord 
 
 Would have us live. 
 His life, his strength for others 'twas 
 His joy to give. 
 
 The Father said, "His work I choose 
 
 Aside to lay," 
 And took him up to work with Him 
 
 In endless day. 
 
 Close to the Master was he here — 
 
 Now closer still. 
 Working on high his Master's work. 
 
 Doing His will. 
 
 We should rejoice for him, that he 
 
 Has "crossed the bar," 
 And sees his Pilot "face to face," 
 
 Heaven is not far. 
 
 148 
 
IX 
 
 PROSPICE 
 
 IN June of 191 3, Mr. and Mrs. Bates started 
 for South America, in order to study the 
 missionary work in that great continent, 
 and also that Mr. Bates might secure a rest 
 from the unceasing labours in which he had 
 continued to tax his strength beyond the limit. 
 
 That he tried to hide his real condition even 
 from his wife is revealed in one of the last 
 letters he ever wrote, a letter to a friend at 
 the Neighborhood House, in which he said : 
 
 "I have not told Edith, but I don't mind the 
 men who are doing my work at Spring Street, 
 especially Scott, knowing that my strength 
 lasted just long enough to say the last 'good- 
 bye'. From then till now I have been so weak, 
 it has been an effort to hold a book or a pen." 
 
 On Thursday, July 1 7, word came to Spring 
 
 Street that Roswell Bates had fallen in the 
 
 heart of South America, having laid down his 
 
 life in the service of those whom he loved. 
 
 On the evening of the following Sunday, his 
 
 people were asked to assemble in the church 
 149 
 
150 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 to which he had given his Hfe. The address 
 dehvered then by Mr. William S. Coffin, and 
 the prayer that he prayed that night, express 
 as nothing else could, what was in the hearts 
 of Spring Street people that Sunday evening. 
 He said in part: 
 
 "The work which God gave Roswell Bates 
 to do was finished, and like the great Prophet 
 and Organizer of Israel, God sent him to a far- 
 off mountain, and then, mysteriously called him 
 home. 
 
 "To you and me remains the task of com- 
 pleting the conquest of the Promised Land, 
 and it seemed to me the moment I woke up this 
 morning as if one message was sounding in 
 my ears, sent from Heaven to the people of 
 Spring Street, and this is the message : 'Speak 
 to the men and women of Spring Street, that 
 they go forward.' 
 
 "What a land of promise lies about this 
 church; thousands upon thousands of men, 
 women and little children, hungry and thirsty 
 for a gospel that will transform narrow, shal- 
 low, sinful lives into lives of abundance, beauty 
 and power, lives that are worth while and really 
 count for God, for country, and their fellow- 
 men. Then there are the strangers within our 
 gates — ^the Italians so dear to Mr. Bates' heart 
 
PROSPICE 151 
 
 ' — ^there are the sick and discouraged — there 
 are the little children. 
 
 "It seems to me as if our Captain were still 
 in this room, his hand resting on the shoulder 
 of every one here, and his voice pleading 
 earnestly, 'Speak to the men and women of 
 Spring Street that they go forward.' And 
 seeing that we are doing our work under the 
 loving eye of such a witness, let us lay aside 
 every weight and the sin that doth so easily 
 beset us, and let us run with patience the race 
 that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the 
 author and perfecter of our faith, Who hath 
 chosen you and ordained you that ye should 
 go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should 
 abide, that believing in Him, the works that 
 Jesus Christ Himself did, we shall do also, and 
 greater works than these shall we do, through 
 the power and example of those that loved us 
 and gave themselves for us." 
 
 This was the concluding prayer: "Hear, O 
 Father, the cry for power that rises from 
 the inmost heart and life of every man and 
 woman in this room. Let the mantle of him 
 who has ascended to Thy side fall upon our 
 shoulders. Endow us with a double portion of 
 his spirit — ^the spirit of Jesus Christ Himself 
 ' — ^which shall enable us to complete the work 
 He has so well organized. May we consecrate 
 
152 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 every day of our lives, as he did, to trans- 
 forming the City of New York into the King- 
 dom of our God and of His Christ, and may He 
 reign and reign alone in the heart and life of 
 every man, woman, and child in this great 
 city. This we ask in the name and for the 
 sake of the great Shepherd of the sheep. Who 
 loved us and gave Himself for us, and Who 
 inspired the shepherd of this little flock daily 
 to give his life for his sheep." 
 
 Still stunned by the brief cable message 
 from South America, and with the details of 
 their leader's death unknown, the Spring Street 
 people went out from that service w,ith a 
 determination in their hearts to be true to the 
 trust that Roswell Bates had left to them. 
 
 The story of his death came finally, in a 
 letter written to the Spring Street Church, 
 from the one he loved most and who loved 
 him best, while she was still among the moun- 
 tains of Peru. 
 
 "We arrived at Cuzco, July 13. There are no car- 
 riages in Cuzco, and we walked to the hotel, a dis- 
 tance of nearly half a mile, with great difficulty. I 
 put him to bed at the hotel and then started out in 
 search of friends. I went to the home of Dr. and 
 Mrs. Austin, American missionaries, whose names 
 I ascertained in Mr. Speer's book on South America. 
 Mrs. Austin could not accommodate us that night 
 
PROSPICE 153 
 
 but promised to call the next day. The following 
 day, the trained nurse, Miss Pinn, called and talked 
 to Mr. Bates for nearly an hour about the work in 
 South America. That evening six Indians carried 
 him on a stretcher to the Austin's home. He slept 
 peacefully. He was not conscious again. 
 
 "The following morning, Tuesday, we called the 
 doctor, a Peruvian, whom the Austins trusted. He 
 said that Mr. Bates must not travel for a week. No 
 one had any anxiety that day. Wednesday morning 
 Miss Pinn told me that she feared the end was near. 
 I prayed hard for his life. He seemed stronger at 
 eleven, and I was sure that God had answered my 
 prayer, that he would live for his church, for his 
 family. But at one the nurse said that I must say 
 good-bye. That last half hour, I was with him alone. 
 He had no suffering, only a quiet, peaceful sleep, 
 and those beautiful eyes opened in Heaven, where he 
 saw his father, mother, and baby brother. 
 
 "We had no good-bye and he had no idea of part- 
 ing. We talked of separation at Lima, but he said, T 
 cannot die ; I must live till my son reaches manhood.' 
 He lived so near to Heaven that God took him as 
 our baby, Talcott, goes to sleep. Do not mourn for 
 him. He is happy and he understands the reason 
 why, although we cannot know yet. Mr. Bates is 
 present with us all the time. I feel his nearness 
 every instant, and I know that if I am unhappy, it 
 grieves him. Let us each one live to make him 
 happy ; let us show to him in this way our love, our 
 devotion. Let us make our church a power, and may 
 we all be worthy of him whom we love so devotedly." 
 
154 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 Mrs. Bates brought his body back to New 
 York, at times helping to carry it herself down 
 from the mountains. Back to the sorrowing 
 people of his own Spring Street Church his 
 body was borne, that those whom he had loved 
 with almost the Master's devotion might not 
 be denied the comfort of bearing witness to 
 their love in the last service over the mortal 
 remains of their minister, whose spirit had 
 gone home to God. 
 
 In the services which followed there was 
 no note of despair, but only of a great and 
 glorious victory, stirring his people to greater 
 achievement than that already accomplished 
 with him. 
 
 His funeral service was held in the Spring 
 Street Church on Sunday morning, August 
 17. Dr. George Alexander gave the opening 
 address and Rev. Murray Shipley Rowland 
 delivered to the sorrowing people gathered 
 there what he believed to be Mr. Bates' mes- 
 sage to his Spring Street : 
 
 "Yonder on Morningside Heights, there is 
 growing slowly, year by year, the great cathe- 
 dral that is to be. That which stands there to- 
 day is but a faint promise of that which shall 
 one day crown those heights. 
 
 "You are building a cathedral here on 
 Spring Street. Into its walls have already 
 
PROSPICB 155 
 
 been built noble lives, sweet, strong lives, 
 lives of delicate fragrance and beauty. And 
 the cornerstone has been the Lord, the Mas- 
 ter, and the keystone of the arch has been your 
 pastor. But, after all it is only the beginning, 
 and as the years pass, you are to build your 
 lives into this rising cathedral, that it shall be 
 perfect, nothing lacking, no stones missing, no 
 beauty lost, but a perfect building, builded to- 
 gether in the Lord. 
 
 "And this is his message to you: *This is 
 the power that overcometh the world, — even 
 your faith.' He 'has fought the good fight, 
 he has finished the course, he has kept the 
 faith,' and Christ the Redeemer has promised 
 that there is laid up for him, and for you, the 
 Crown of Righteousness, which the Lord shall 
 give to him at that time, not to him only, but to 
 all those who love his Lord." 
 
 The next day beside his grave at Hartford, 
 Connecticut, the same note of victory resounded 
 through the words of Rev, Charles E. Rhodes : 
 
 "Here, at last, our long, sad journey ends. 
 From the very first nothing has been said or 
 done to make the last services for our dear one 
 seem like defeat; nothing has been funereal. 
 The note of victory has, as is most fitting, been 
 always kept uppermost. So let it be at this 
 place where the last words are said. 
 
156 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 "All this has seemed so in keeping with the 
 life which has not ended, but only changed. 
 The great and good work shall forever go on. 
 No broken column symbolizes the earthly por- 
 tion of Roswell's life; even that was complete, 
 though short. Rather does the full sheaf of 
 wheat symbolize that life. The world is better 
 because he lived and worked. And his works 
 shall follow him. His memory shall be blessed. 
 Of him it may be most truly said: 'This is the 
 victory, even your faith.' 
 
 "The loss to us, and the separation, fill our 
 hearts with untold sadness. But our sadness 
 is not like that of those who sorrow without 
 hope. Our hope and our faith sustain us, as 
 they ever sustained him. So would he have it. 
 
 "Rarely could the last words of the great 
 Christian poet, Browning, be applied to another 
 so well as here, for our brother was called away 
 'at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time.' 
 And how well do these words characterize 
 him: 
 
 " 'One who never turned his back but marched breast 
 forward. 
 Never doubted clouds would break, 
 Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong 
 
 would triumph, 
 Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 
 Sleep to wake." 
 
Entrance to Bates House 
 
PROSPICE 157 
 
 On November 2, a Memorial Service was 
 held in the Spring Street Church, in which 
 very simply and briefly, testimony to the con- 
 tinuing power of the influence of Roswell 
 Bates, was given by Dr. George Alexander, 
 Dr. A. Woodruff Halsey, and Dr. Henry S. 
 Coffin, representing his fellow-ministers in 
 New York City, and by some of the younger 
 men whom he had inspired to do the work of 
 the future. Rev. William D. Barnes, Jr., Rev. 
 Albert L. Evans, Rev. Frank L. Janeway, 
 Rev. Theodore F. Savage, Rev. John E. Flem- 
 ming, and Rev. Norman M. Thomas. The 
 triumphant message of his life was again driven 
 home to the hearts of his people. Mr. Thomas 
 summed up the wonder of his work at Spring 
 Street and in the colleges when he said : 
 
 "A few years ago a clergyman asked me: 
 *How long will Mr. Bates stay at Spring 
 Street? A man who can preach as he can 
 ought not to stay — it's foolish.' 
 
 "Today we are here to pay our homage to 
 such magnificent folly. In that which is fool- 
 ishness to the world is revealed the wisdom of 
 God. The loyalty which kept Mr. Bates at 
 Spring Street, above all else, explains his 
 character and work, and the vision he had of 
 the part the Church should play in communi- 
 ties like this, is the vision the Church must 
 
158 LIFE OF H. ROSWELL BATES 
 
 have if ever she herself is to be saved and to 
 save a world for Christ. 
 
 "The world is hungering and thirsting today 
 for a living message, which comes in the wis- 
 dom and power of God. Such he brought, 
 especially to young men. He came to them 
 with a great sympathy. He knew their tempta- 
 tions and weaknesses. He told them of a 
 Christ Who was mighty to save. He spoke 
 of no distant theological Redeemer, but of a 
 personal Friend, Whose friendship he had 
 proved. Who had helped him in his own temp- 
 tations, and out of weakness had made him 
 strong. He did more than that. He bade 
 men look at the darkness of sin and mis- 
 ery around about them in the poorest 
 regions of the city, and then he told them 
 that even there had the light shined. So he 
 won his hearers in the colleges not with 
 words of eloquence, but with a life of service, 
 and with tales of his own experience in bring- 
 ing in the fulness of life which Christ came to 
 give, even to the poorest and neediest of earth. 
 Because he had himself thus proved Christian- 
 ity and made it a force in reclaiming the 
 drunkard, arousing the indifferent, and lighten- 
 ing the burden of the poor, he had a message 
 for college men which he never would have 
 had apart from his work here at Spring Street. 
 
PROSPICE 159 
 
 How extensive his influence was, only God 
 knows. I think it is true that Hterally hun- 
 dreds of college men today mourn him as a 
 personal friend, and feel the influence of his 
 words as one of the strongest forces in their 
 lives." 
 
 The work of the leader will increase as 
 Spring Street grows with the years. 'A dream 
 which was in the heart of Roswell Bates 
 before he went to South America is soon to 
 be realized in the erection at Spring Street of 
 a new Gymnasium and a Dormitory for work- 
 ing girls. Over the door there will be an 
 inscription which contains the very essence of 
 the spirit working today at Spring Street: 
 
 TO CONTINUE THE WORK 
 OF H. ROSWELL BA^ES 
 
 Printed in the United States of America. 
 
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