Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati Part 4

With the ministers of other churches he worked in closest cooperation, and together they fought the c.o.x Gang, supported the Social Agencies, and many other activities to which the civic-minded and church-minded in Cincinnati gave unstintingly of their devotion. The Reverend John F.

Herget, the distinguished former minister of another downtown church, the Ninth Street Baptist, says, "For twenty-five years we labored together and the pa.s.sing years only added to my confidence in his intellectual and spiritual integrity. He was a real friend, and when my only son died, he was the first minister in Cincinnati to step through my doorway. I can never forget it. Do you wonder that I loved him and cherish his memory? We were very different in many ways but those differences never deprived us of mutual respect and deep affection."

Without a doubt, ministers of all Protestant churches regarded him as the foremost clergyman in the city.

In 1901 Mr. Nelson was elected to members.h.i.+p in the Clergy Club of Cincinnati, an organization which is composed of many of the leading Protestant ministers. On the occasion of the club's twenty-fifth anniversary in 1919, Dr. Dwight M. Pratt, then of the Walnut Hills Congregational Church, wrote a witty and apt characterization of each member. The following is his superb sketch of Mr. Nelson:

NELSON: The Apollo of the Club, equally recognized as such whether in ecclesiastical robes and millinery or in outing negligee; the physical having its counterpart in athletic qualities of mind and heart; a broad-minded, tolerant Churchman, incapable of surrendering to the artificial in form and ceremony or to the pretentious in self-const.i.tuted human authority, even when sanctified by tradition and usage, and aware of its historic affinities to Rome. Fundamentally spiritual in his conceptions of the Church and of the Kingdom; quickly alert to elements in religion that are born of the flesh and vitiated by human pride; unsurpa.s.sed in the Club for his exalted conception of historic Christianity and of the glory and prestige of a spirit-filled and spirit-guided church, having a vision of church unity impossible of realization under the a.s.sumption and the exclusiveness of Episcopacy; a genial democrat in spite of aristocratic training and environment; intimately acquainted with the trend and quality of modern critical scholars.h.i.+p, and in sympathetic touch with the social movements of the day, in the church and outside of it; too thorough and vital, however, to make the mistake, more common in his church than any other, of subst.i.tuting social Christianity for evangelistic, thus making the care, culture and comfort of the outer man more important than his spiritual redemption; a student of men and books; an observant traveller, a recent and scholarly resident of the ancient metropolis of the world:[12] a keen interpreter of the movements of history, ancient and modern; endowed as a preacher with homiletic skill and the spiritual art of making life seem large and the Kingdom of G.o.d the one supreme reality for man; and all this in spite of the fact that he is far from being Puritan; never showing the marks of an ascetic nor any tendency or inclination to self-martyrdom; as much in need of reform in some things as the time honored secretary of the Club; popular with men because in so many respects like them; popular also as a public speaker and on occasions where grace of speech and manner const.i.tute an essential factor in the program; a conspicuous personality in a pageant, having the note of sincerity, sympathy and appeal that commands a.s.semblies; a man whose promotion will always be in spite of high-churchmen and the favorites of Bishops; a man indispensable to the breadth and representative character of the Club.

There remains one other activity to be mentioned in Mr. Nelson's city-wide ministry. In 1930 Mayor Murray Seasongood appointed him to the Board of Directors of the University of Cincinnati, a board commonly known as the Trustees. It was a distinguished appointment, characteristic of Mayor Seasongood's primary emphasis on the welfare of the city, and indicative of the confidence placed by intellectual and civic leaders in Mr. Nelson's judgment and ability. The Board was made up of eight business men and lawyers and concerned itself mainly with the financial problems of the University. Mr. Nelson's approach was to the human element in each situation with which this Board had to deal.

He served in this capacity for eight years, and became "an acute, piercing trustee." The University Medical School has oversight of the Cincinnati General Hospital, and Mr. Nelson was troubled by the large number of cases of tuberculosis among members of the staff and the nurses and interns. The hours were long, the pay poor, and living conditions deplorable. He was very active in his support of the efforts by the authorities to bring about improvement in these conditions.

He was chairman of the committee which interviewed candidates for the office of Dean of Woman, since many on the Board did not feel qualified to make such a selection. During the depression in the thirties when reduction of salaries and of department personnel became necessary, Mr.

Nelson was instrumental in securing fair treatment for the individual teacher. He would ask if the teacher whose salary reduction was under consideration had a family and how many children. His colleagues considered him a very important agent in preserving morale during these difficult years, and the President and deans frequently sought his counsel.

He was a firm believer in academic freedom. When the Engineering College arranged lectures for business men, he gave the plan his hearty support, and occasionally came under fire because of certain radical speakers. He was frequently the choice of the University as its representative on public occasions in the city. At the Commencement of 1924, the University of Cincinnati bestowed upon Mr. Nelson the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, "as one who has ever striven to advance the government of the mind and spirit, and who by his own severe self-discipline and true humility has taught all of us to subdue ourselves to the imperishable laws of reason and faith."

When one considers the recognition which the entire city whole-heartedly and unreservedly accorded Mr. Nelson, it is a sorry commentary on the influence of politics that upon the expiration of his second term as a trustee of the University the new Republican Mayor, James Garfield Stewart, failed to reappoint him. He was deeply hurt, but there was satisfaction in the realization that it was because of his continued denunciation of party politics that the reappointment did not go through. He was a clergyman who never curried favor nor withheld opinion when forthrightness was the moral requisite. The people knew where he stood, and no office could silence him. To behave as a citizen is "to conduct oneself as pledged to some law of life." His faithful obedience was recognized on many occasions and in numerous ways. One such recognition was his place in a group of fifteen leading citizens selected by four Cincinnatians chosen at random by "_The Cincinnati Post_." He was described as "having given vision and voice to public service, and in the art of human relations a leader in many fields for many people."

Few public testimonials have awakened so spontaneous a response as that tendered Mr. Nelson on December 3, 1923, in honor of his twenty-five years of service to church and city. Originating among his own paris.h.i.+oners, the plan quickly developed into a city-wide observance.

The committee on arrangements was expanded, and included the Reverend Doctor Francis J. Finn, Rabbi David Philipson, the Reverend John F.

Herget, and the Right Reverend Boyd Vincent, as well as a large number of prominent laity outside Christ Church. When the evening arrived, one thousand one hundred people from all paths of life sat down to dinner in the Hotel Gibson. The President of the University, Dr. Frederick C.

Hicks, presided. The Mayor, then George P. Carrell, cut short a vacation in order to be present and speak for the city, Mr. George D. Crabbs represented the Social Agencies, Dr. William S. Rainsford came on from New York to join in the acclaim. Mayor Carrell voiced a perfect tribute when he spoke of Mr. Nelson in these simple words: "Here is a true man.

He loves his fellows. He does not recognize creed or color. Cincinnati is proud of him. Cincinnati loves him." At the conclusion of the speeches, Mr. Nelson, visibly affected, rose to speak. The tumultuous applause lasted five minutes. With characteristic humility he expressed his thanks, and then drew the attention of the audience to the central theme of any true public servant's work, namely, that "Faith creates; cynicism destroys." This enthusiastic testimonial was a moving demonstration of the place Frank Nelson filled in the hearts of his fellow-citizens, an exception to the rule that a prophet is without honor in his own city. There were two interesting side-lights to the occasion. On the morning of the dinner the Reverend Francis J. Finn, a particular friend, and the pastor of St. Francis Xavier's Roman Catholic Church, offered up the Holy Sacrifice with his Protestant friend as his special intention; and in the evening there stood among the waiters, but not of them, Detroit Williams, the colored s.e.xton of Christ Church, who could not have been present but for Mr. Nelson's skillful arrangement.

Such was the spirit of Cincinnati's great Christian citizen. His humanity was all inclusive, his spirit discerning, and the city claimed him as its own, for he gave voice to its conscience and helped it find its soul.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] _City Management_ Charles P. Taft, p. 108 Farrar and Rineheart, 1933. Used by permission. Other statements on the Charter Movement are based upon the report of the Consultant Service of the National Munic.i.p.al League ent.i.tled _The Government of Cincinnati, 1924-1944_.

[10] _City Management_ C. P. Taft, p. 30. Farrar and Rineheart. Used with permission.

[11] Adaptation of a thought expressed by Alexander Woollcott in _While Rome Burns_, p. 7.

[12] Mr. Nelson twice spent a year in Rome on leave of absence.

_They Came To Be In His Presence_

_In This Church The Reverend Frank Howard Nelson, D.D.

Preached The Gospel of Christ for Forty Years

1899-1939_

"_I thank my G.o.d upon every remembrance of you._"

--_Memorial Plaque at Entrance to Christ Church._

5

"You can't change me, old man. I am the last of the black Protestants."

In this whimsical way Frank Nelson spoke of himself one day in conversation with a friend on some point of ritual. It is abundantly evident that he was in no way a bigoted churchman, and with all his fine, broad sympathies he stood forth as a Protestant. He represented that aspect of the Catholic-Protestant structure of the Episcopal Church, he conducted the services in Christ Church from that angle, his preaching reflected it, and the absence of the clerical collar emphasized it. There is a measure of truth in his droll description of himself.

In the first decades of this century Mr. Nelson was one of a group of broad-churchmen whose influence was just beginning to be felt.

Theologically he was a liberal with reservations, and stood in what is now called "Central Anglicanism" in the sense of "essential orthodoxy, continuity, and breadth and liberality within limits, checked by the principle of discipline, and an outlook, above all, theocentric; fidelity to Christianity as the religion of the Incarnation, and of the Church viewed as Christ's mystical body."[13]

The truth is that he was different from certain brands of so-called liberals. Like many of them he was an individualist but not, as in the popular conception of that word, an eccentric. His individualism resided in his strong personality, whole and complete rather than partial. He had an immense scorn of the petty narrow-minded points of view. He said, "There is no one so narrow as the broad-minded liberal! Look out! Be sure that you do not develop a closed mind toward the other man's point of view!" Frank Nelson stood in the stream of the best traditions of historic Anglicanism. He had, for instance, a tremendous feeling of reverence for the Altar and the appointments for the celebration of the Holy Communion; and his manner of conducting the Lord's Supper brought that service very close to the most sensitive of wors.h.i.+pers. On the first Sunday of each month the Holy Communion was celebrated at eight and at eleven A.M., and he made it the chief factor in building up the younger members of the parish into the Church. Usually Christ Church was crowded for the first as well as the later service, and it was immensely impressive to contemplate the congregation that came at the early hour of eight o'clock from all parts of the city and from distant suburbs. There is communicated serenity as well as reverence in the stately, liturgical service, but that feeling-tone is dependent on the minister conducting it. Mr. Nelson was a medium for the communication of the very spirit of Christ in that service. The ancient, familiar words were given a fresh beauty by his manner and his natural, virile voice. His methods reflected certain qualities of his character.

It was his custom to read the service up through the Sanctus from the north end of the Altar, moving to the center for the remainder, and at the moment of the consecration of the Bread and Wine to turn halfway around so that the congregation could see the blessing of the Elements.

It was in part an observance of the Apostolic custom of the minister's standing behind the Altar and facing the congregation, and one which he had learned from his days at St. George's under Dr. Rainsford.

In a time of much disparagement, Frank Nelson and his parish upheld the fair reputation of the Church. Bishop Hobson says, "Many a minister and many a church have taken heart and courage because of his ministry."

Because he was unafraid to experiment and venture on fresh approaches to old problems, he risked misunderstanding and criticism. He had a marked sense of the dignity of his office, and all who worked on the staff of Christ Church were aware that he was the rector, a czar if you will, but one with a gloved hand. He ran the parish, but not for his own sake nor from delight in power. As a matter of fact, he distrusted power, particularly when wielded by small men in the office of Bishop, and because of that distrust, and because of the democratic nature of the government of the Episcopal Church, he held the leaders.h.i.+p of rectors to be equal in value to that of the Episcopate.

In the management of the parish, he was "a man set under authority." He expected hard work of those to whom he delegated responsibility. Though he occasionally interfered, he invariably backed up his leaders even when they were in the wrong. He did not hesitate to criticize: a retiring choir-master said to his successor, "He is a tyrant, and you won't last three months." After eighteen years, he is still there! There were those who sometimes found Mr. Nelson abrupt, but as they came to understand his temperament and to appreciate his insistence that things should be run decently and in order, they were the very ones who would have stood on their heads for him because his nature inspired endless devotion. It is easy to lose sight of human values in a large inst.i.tution, but he was the kind of person who was quick to apologize for any rudeness, and if the instance had to do with some fine point of procedure, he would grin and say, "But I was right!"--and he was. A unique thing about his rectors.h.i.+p was his willingness to take the blame upon himself when something went wrong. He felt he was at fault for not having given his subordinates the right training. The conception he held of his office of rector impelled him to give each year a comprehensive report of his parish work along with an audited financial accounting of all monies that he had handled personally.

In the services of Christ Church, Frank Nelson's individuality found complete expression. The Prayer Book offices were marked by an absence of ceremonial, but filled with a profound simplicity and a n.o.ble dignity. People coming from other parishes and accustomed to considerable ritual and better architecture (Christ Church has been likened to a Moorish mosque!) learned that such externals occupy in reality a subordinate position in the Christian life, as the rector's manner and forceful preaching lifted them to the plane of spirit-filled wors.h.i.+p. He was concerned not with the creation of an atmosphere in which to bathe with satisfaction one's feelings about G.o.d but with the living message of the Gospel. One came at last to love the old church building because there the spirit was fed, the mind enlightened, and the will impelled to action.

People came to be in his presence. They found a new, bright sense of the glory of religious faith; they felt how precious is the least of the human vessels into which G.o.d pours His Spirit. The man in himself communicated a personality so wholly infused with the grace of the Lord Jesus that his hearers were stirred to action, which result stems from the authentic note in preaching. "Effective preaching can only mean effective in the sense of doing G.o.d's work."[14] Frank Nelson did G.o.d's work. He stirred people to do G.o.d's work. The atmosphere of conviction generated by the preacher is due to his whole personality rather than to his words; hence the impact made upon his hearers at the moment of his speaking is never conveyed through the printed page. Its influence, however, continues in their lives, and measured by this standard Frank Nelson was a powerful and effective preacher. The gift of swift, magnetic, eloquent speech was his. Words with the quality and vigor of intuitive imagination poured out of him. Yet preaching was never easy for him, and as it was dominated by his characteristic intensity and fervor, he was nervous beforehand and exhausted afterward. His emotional range sometimes led him off the main thread of a discourse; at times he ranted; and more than once preached an entirely different sermon from the one outlined in his written notes. His preaching was "feeling warmed up to vision," and the word of G.o.d pa.s.sed through him to men. He believed tremendously in preaching; there were few services in Christ Church at which he did not preach,[15] but he was not a so-called popular preacher; crowds did not constantly fill the pews. To some his driving power was wearing, and even some of his admirers would exclaim, "Oh, I do wish Mr. Nelson would not tear his throat so when he preaches." But his very force of delivery, and his vehemence were a part of the man, and he no more could have preached in another manner than have changed his stature.

But these characteristics had compensations or off-setting factors.

After Mr. Nelson's exchange with the rector of St. Paul's Church, Rome, Italy in 1912, a certain dowager commented, "Mr. Lowrie's sermons made me feel comfortable, but Mr. Nelson makes me feel a miserable sinner!" A newcomer, on his first Sunday in Cincinnati, went to Christ Church intending to "sample" several churches before casting his lot with one.

The choir came in, followed by a young, boyish-looking clergyman whom the man presumed to be the a.s.sistant. During the sermon Mr. Nelson continually entangled himself in his stole and gave the impression of one so inextricably caught up in his message that he was a part of it, stole and all! The newcomer was Frederick C. Hicks, later the President of the University of Cincinnati. He did not go elsewhere but continued at Christ Church and eventually became a vestryman.

Mr. Nelson did not talk in an amiable sort of way about the Christian virtues; his sermons, thank G.o.d, were not colorless essays on the doctrine of G.o.d, and the Church. He preached with abandon, and there issued forth a fiery stream of conviction that stabbed his hearers into life. Within those in whom the seed found good soil there was reproduced his hunger for righteousness, his integrity of character.

What we heard from the pulpit of Christ Church was the product of hard-won battles, the forthrightness of a man stirred by his struggle to live as a follower of Jesus Christ. He was no respecter of persons but of personality, saying "We don't dare to be Christians." Some said Frank Nelson did not preach doctrinal sermons, but if not, then church doctrine needs another name, for this man preached the Christian faith, pouring it forth in great bucketfuls. If after hearing him one didn't know something about the revelation of G.o.d in Jesus Christ, then there is no such thing as doctrine.

The rector was sensitive about his failure to attract larger congregations, and deprecated his ability as a speaker. He was forever saying that he could not preach, and that he preached too long, but jested that he was too old to change! Once in the midst of an after-dinner speech, he paused to make an aside to his friend, J.

Hollister Lynch, "Am I talking too long?" "Yes," whispered Dr. Lynch, but he kept right on! Cincinnati is not a church-going city like Pittsburgh, for instance, but, as one witty observer has remarked, "Cincinnati has fewer moral lapses!" In making judgments on this point, one should take into consideration the fact that there was a large Roman Catholic const.i.tuency, and that the predominant German population of Cincinnati which came in such large numbers during the middle of the nineteenth century, was definitely anti-religious. Christ Church, moreover, is a downtown church, and the greater number of the communicants live in suburbs. His parish took him for granted as was inevitable over a forty-year period, but when we recall his multiple civic a.s.sociations, and the fact that whenever he spoke there was a religious foundation to his address and in his presence, we perceive that Mr. Nelson's preaching reached far beyond the bounds of Christ Church.

The sermons of Frank Nelson were pervaded with a fine ethical perception. He was in the succession of the ancient Hebrew prophets in their profound love of justice and concern for humanity. He had a keen, quick feeling for spiritual values, and succeeded in relating them in vital fas.h.i.+on to the throbbing stress of daily living. Beyond his piercing eloquence, captivating as it most certainly was, was the compelling fact that in his interpretation of the religious significance of human experience he stood forth like a pine tree towering above scraggly growth. No one can ever forget that tall, dynamic figure in the s.p.a.cious pulpit of Christ Church preaching the Word of G.o.d with gripping power. It was not merely the power of virility and eloquence, but the power of grasp, of comprehension, the ability to communicate truth and make it come alive, and cry out for expression in the hearts and lives of his hearers. We felt the majesty of the human spirit, the impatience of sure faith with the rags and blemishes of doubt and cynicism. "Like rain upon the mown gra.s.s, as showers that water the earth," Frank Nelson poured out his soul, and revealed the grand proportions of human destiny.

In his beautiful address at the Helen S. Trounstine Memorial Service, a portion of which follows, we find one of the best examples of Mr.

Nelson's ability to interpret human experience, as well as of his intuitive understanding of another's travail of soul:

And then her courage. There are the lesser courages and the greater. There are many who dare face danger and undertake hard tasks, and face ridicule and failure. It is a fine and a true courage and I do not underrate it. Helen Trounstine had it and had it to the full. She tackled hard tasks; she faced some men whose interests she opposed. She fought out her fights against all comers, and never flinched. She would go into the court or into the saloon or dance hall, the places of commercial recreation, and fight her fight with all, for what she believed to be right; and she won most of the time. It was a n.o.ble thing to see that delicate woman unafraid before the problems and evils of the world.

Yet that was not the finest courage she had. That other finer courage is the one that I would emphasize. It was given her to reconcile a spirit filled with high ideals and great desires, with a body weak, often bent and torn with pain, unsuited to the tasks she longed to do, until at last she was stricken with utter helplessness waiting for the end. For only a few brief years was her body adequate, even a little, to her will. And instead of bending before that limitation and saying that she could do nothing because of it, instead of growing bitter with resentment at a fate that had so burdened her, she but grappled with it the more determinedly. With utter courage of heart and mind, she fought her inner fight and won the victory of cheer and energy and peace. With no excuse and no complaints, and no relaxing of her will before the limitations of her strength, she lived and loved and served as if she had the health she longed for. The limitations of her stricken body meant the giving up of many dear desires, of hopes that would have made life sweet and joyous, of work she yearned to undertake.

Any of you who have had much to do with one stricken with a sore disease, who knows he never can be well again, know that it is not the sickness, the physical weakness and pain that make the problem and the tragedy. It is the reconciling of the will to surrender life's hopes and the readjustment of the life to the conditions that have got to be, that nothing can change. That was Helen Trounstine's problem and her tragedy. She sat down with her fate and fought that fight and won it. It must have meant many hours of untold darkness and suffering and bitter questioning and struggle. But of such hours she gave us no outward sign. At least I saw none in the years I knew her, except that finest one of all, the victory of her soul in the glad and joyous doing of what remained within her power.

It is not surprising that his addresses on Good Friday and his sermons on Easter Day were more nearly adequate to those great days than is commonly the case. He cared for these days tremendously, and never ceased to be heartened by the throngs that crowded the old church, filled up the chancel, and stood in the vestibule through the Three Hours on Good Friday. It seemed as if the whole city was aroused as people from offices and factories, and from the outlying districts came to these special services year after year during his long rectors.h.i.+p. It stirs the imagination to think of that gathering, the rich and the poor, the highly-cultivated, and the meekly endowed, shop girls and clerks, the faithful and those groping for faith, all drawn by the mysterious fire kindled by this man of G.o.d. There was a concentrated intensity to his preaching on these occasions, for he saw clearly and felt deeply the tragedies of life. In that vibrant voice and in his pa.s.sionate concern for the soul of men, there burned a white-souled homage to G.o.d, and a faith and love that spoke to each one's condition. Out of his long brooding over the darkly colored stream of history, and the chequered progress of Christianity of which his daily contact with the city's life as well as his study gave him profound knowledge, there came forth "great out-bursts of unshakable certainty which stand up like Alpine peaks in the spiritual landscape of humanity." The integrity of the man along with the power and dramatic quality of his speech was unveiled for all the world to see. One recalls in this particular a certain Good Friday after World War I when he took up Sarah Bernhardt's ghastly reversal of the First Word from the Cross, "Father, do _not_ forgive them for they _know_ what they do," and with terrific intensity literally shouted, "That is a lie straight from h.e.l.l."

His preaching always illumined a fine feeling for the mastery of language, and those who heard him over the span of the years were conscious that in his Good Friday addresses he employed plain, Anglo-Saxon words, fundamental, strong words that lent a c.u.mulative effect to his speech. Because of his modesty he never consented to the publication of any of his Good Friday addresses, which is lamentable for without a doubt they represent his best preaching. A full, stenographic report, however, was made of his last addresses in 1939, and certain paragraphs from the Third Word may well be quoted. This Word from the Cross, "When Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciple standing by whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother!", was greatly loved by his people because he gave to it an interpretation that was entirely original: