Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" Part 9

Then fret not over what is past and gone; And spite of all thou mayest have lost behind, Yet act as if thy life were just begun.

What each day wills, enough for thee to know, What each day wills, the day itself will tell.

Do thine own task, and therewith be content; What others do that shall thou fairly judge.

Be sure that thou no mortal brother hate, Then all beside leave to the Master Power."

A People's Church[1]

"What would you do if you were rich?" This is a question often asked, and readily answered by those who have not wealth of their own to dispose of, for there is nothing easier than to give away other people's money. But it is more difficult to the conscientious, who feel that their unearned millions ought to inure in some way to the public benefit, yet do not always see the way to the reconciling of their own conditions and circ.u.mstances with that use of money which seems to them wisest and best.

[Footnote 1: _The Cycle_.]

As a rule it may safely be a.s.sumed that if all who are poor were suddenly made rich, they would do as the majority of our rich men do with their money--keep it. But it is at least pleasant to think how generous one might be, and as the rich occasionally are; and I propose to suggest one object that I hope will one day be realized in this great city, where everything good is possible, as well as everything evil, and which only needs to take vital root in some active mind to become a living reality.

Within a certain area New York may be called a city of churches, but they are churches for the rich; solemn, imposing, cathedral-aisled, gla.s.s-stained, costly, munificently beneficed, elegantly pastored--G.o.d locked in, the poor locked out. I know there are "mothers'" meetings and "mite" societies, and all the rest of it, but all the same the poor woman in her old shawl and bonnet would not think of entering one of those expensive pews, nor does the man in his working suit feel that that is the place for him. Outside, the majority of churches take no account of the necessity for the consolation, the comfort, the upbuilding, the refreshment of religion, save and only for certain hours on Sunday, and then it must be in full toggery, and in company with, the eminently respectable.

The most beautiful thing about the old churches abroad is not their splendor of carving and painting, but that they stand with, open doors week days and Sundays, for the people to enter; and they do enter. The market woman with her basket drops in for a moment on her way home from the labor of her weary day. The old woman totters in to say her "Ave Maria," the young woman to pray away her perplexities. Even the business man sometimes finds it a resource from his struggles and temptations. The poor, with their crowded houses and narrow quarters, have so little privacy as to make quiet, and even an opportunity for self-communion, a luxury. Then how often in the perplexities which fill their lives they desire for a little while a retreat, a refuge where they can think, perhaps receive a word of counsel, at least find an atmosphere of absolute peace and restfulness.

The Monday prayer-meeting, the afternoon exhortation; the evening conference of the Baptists, the Methodists, the Presbyterians, or the Congregationalists, are not what is wanted; nor is it a cold and barn-like edifice which makes one feel, if one goes to call upon G.o.d, as though He were out, and could only be seen at stated times, and by the will of the s.e.xton and the trustees.

A people's church is wanted, where the people can come and go as they please; which asks no questions, which is always open, which has brief singing and organ services that all and any people of any kind and degree may attend and feel themselves welcome. A morning service of praise, a mid-day song of rejoicing, a vesper hymn of thankfulness. No word of condemnation, no word of controversy, no word of doubt, no word of a.s.sertion or denial; only unceasing love, continued and eternal recognition of human kins.h.i.+p and readiness to minister to any soul's need as far as it may be reached and helped.

No one minister could perform its offices; its servants would have to be in a manner consecrated to its work, and they should be men and women who have suffered, and therefore know, but who would find more reason for rejoicing than lamentation; who would possess gifts of music and oratory, and whose personal influence would be strong for righteousness.

There are great churches with scattered congregations, in Fifth avenue; there are a few poor churches, and small, for which no one cares, and which offer no attractions to the over-flowing population of Mott street. The spring and summer will soon come, and then these great churches will be closed, their pew-owners distributed over lake and mountain in all the different parts of the wide world. But the "people" will be here. People who work in foundries and shops, who live in tenement-houses; people who earn a hand-to-mouth living as clerks, book-keepers, seamstresses and petty store-keepers; people who have to stay in such homes as they can support because they cannot afford to break them up and go elsewhere.

For these people and their children there is only the street. The children occupy the street. For four or five months in the year they make life hideous, especially on Sunday, by noise and exhibition of vandalism that would disgrace the savages of any age or nation. The police acknowledge themselves powerless to prevent it. It is simply the exercise of undirected faculty which might be turned to account, but which has only noise, confusion, and street warfare for its opportunity for exercise.

There are possibilities in these congregations of the highways and byways, and when we have our people's church or churches, open all the year, and all the night as well as all the day, and the voices of the angels for sweetness, singing love and peace on earth, in an anthem that pierces the roof, and with the tones of a mighty organ to emphasize to all the world its message, and it is not a question of clothes, many people will be glad to listen, and will find an influence in the music, in the willingness, in the free-heartedness, in the sympathy, in the kindness, in the spirit of brotherhood, that they would not get out of preaching nor dogma.

Whom are we waiting for to build this church? Is it a woman? Surely it is an opportunity that carries the two-fold blessing.

Notes, Letters and Stray Leaves

A "free lance" is less free than the organs of a party. In one case it means at least the opinions of a group; in the other, the dogmatism of the one who wields the lance. Nothing is less free than the self-styled freedom of the individual.

Enthusiasm implies a certain narrowness of vision. When people can take a broad view they can see the elements of goodness or beauty everywhere, and they cease to be enthusiastic in regard to one. The great popular preachers are not university men, or those who are quiet and literary in style, but strong, dogmatic men.

Perhaps the most noticeable difference between the so-called new woman and the new man is this, that she is seizing every opportunity that opens up new avenues of individual employment, while he is discovering and storing energy to save himself from doing any work at all. The old man made other men, and women too, work for him, the new man is making the hitherto uncontrolled forces his servants, locking them up in such small compa.s.s that a twist of the wrist will start the crash of worlds.

The notes of the great G.o.d Pan, so "piercingly sweet by the river"--a far cry and a weary way from Pan to Handel and Beethoven; yet during all that time music has been the joy and the consolation of peoples,--all except the Quakers.

If Poetry is the prophet of the future, music expresses all emotions,--love, joy, fear, above all, aspiration. Music is essentially religious, and has inspired the most perfect forms of emotional composition we know.

I take off my hat to the new man--that is, I would if I wore one, but I wear a bonnet, and pin it on with long, sharp-pointed things which if they were not used voluntarily would be considered instruments of torture. Think of the man who is testing the force of dynamite--who is holding lightning bolts in his hand and forcing them to do the work which he has planned for them, who is taking the alt.i.tude of the mountains in Mars in his observatory in the air at midnight,--think of these men stopping to swear while they ran the murderous little weapon through six thicknesses of buckram, lining, velvet, lace, feathers, ribbon and hair--to fasten on their bonnets!

Letter to the New York Woman's Press Club

October, 1900.

My dear Friends and Fellow-Members:

It was really a grief to me not to be able to meet you individually and collectively before leaving to be absent the entire season. The accident which disabled me for the summer, threatens to cripple me for the winter also, and in this condition of dependence and general disability, it seemed best to go where I could have seclusion, and the care of some member of my own family.

I resign my place among you with less reluctance because the Woman's Press Club is now strong and well able to guard its own interests, and direct its own affairs. It will, I am sure, be all the better and stronger from being thrown upon its own resources, and made to depend wholly upon the potent efforts which have been evoked, and which may be still further developed on the part of its members.h.i.+p.

It will be a source of the deepest satisfaction to me in my retirement to think of you in connection with the happy times we have had, and the good work done during the past three years, and also of the spirit of loving fellows.h.i.+p which has grown so strong and so deep. Nothing can give greater pleasure than to hear of your continued growth and prosperity, of continued endeavor to make the work effective, and the life of the Woman's Press Club beautiful and useful.

Remember that a well-rounded club is an epitome of the world; that it never can and never ought to be perfect according to any one individual's idea of perfection, for every one's ideal is different; and it is the unity in this diversity which const.i.tutes the spiritual life of the club, as the soul animates and inspires the body.

Exalt the club. Bring your best to the front. Extinguish personal aims. Mind not at all the little picking and carping of human gadflies, whose desire to extract blood is perhaps a survival of their species, and an evidence of their unfitness for human companions.h.i.+p.

I think of you at every gathering, and if you remember me, show it in your determination to make the Woman's Press Club of Greater New York an honor to the metropolis of the New World and to American womanhood.

J.C. CROLY.

Hill Farm, Hersham, Walton-on-Thames, England.

Letter to Sorosis

May, 1899.

To my dear friends and fellow-members of Sorosis:

On the eve of my departure from New York for a season, my heart turns towards Sorosis with a depth of affection I find it difficult to put into words. For thirty years it has held a large place in my life. It has represented the closest companions.h.i.+p, the dearest friends.h.i.+ps, the most serious aspirations of my womanhood. The past is filled with delightful memories, social and intellectual, of which it was the happy instrument and inspiration. Its galleries are stored with living pictures of n.o.ble women who were with us, who are always of us, who have become a part of that eternal source of spiritual life from which the best things spring. What is the secret of the strength of Sorosis?

What is its value to the community and the world at large? It is, as a centre of unity. This is our Holy Grail,--and this we are bound never to defame, or defile by thought, word or deed.

We planted the seed not in Sorosis alone, but in the General Federation; and it is our duty to see that it is preserved in its integrity. Sorosis does not want place or power in the organization she created, but it is hers to see that the great principle it embodied is not lost sight of. That the limitless growth and expansion provided for in its foundations are always from centre to circ.u.mference, not in sections; and that as differences are not recognized in the local organization, so there can be no north, south, east, or west in the general organization, nor any separation or division of interests. This is the aim of Sorosis:--to perfect within its own members.h.i.+p that unity in diversity which is the basis of its life, and the source of its growth; and, as far as its strength and influence extend, preserve it as the foundation of a united womanhood.

The consolation I feel in going away is that I shall find you here when I return; not, I hope, crippled and disabled as now, but able to be among you once more. I leave a monument of the woman's club in the "Women's Club History," which carries marvellous testimony to the ideals and aspirations of the woman of the home--for this is the woman of the club.

G.o.d bless and keep you all! I wish I could look into your kind faces individually, and thank you for all that Sorosis past and present has been to me.

Faithfully yours, J.C. CROLY.