n those years in the
carpenter's shop in Nazareth, and the laboring for daily bread.
Neither was it easy to break away, and leave home, but God called
me, and deep down in your heart you were glad that God chose
me--it was the confirmation of all that the angels had whispered
in your heart. You were proud of me, sure that God had somewhat
in store for me that had never been known in the world, never
known to the mothers of other sons. And then murmurs came to you
of opposition, of the hostility of men high up in the synagogues,
weird reports of my deeds, and strange teachings, and finally all
that I said and did seemed to go against the authority and
sanctions of your religion, and you were fearful of my mind. And
now I have come to this disgraceful end. This cross is the
fruitage of those thirty years spent with you and in the
fulfilling of God's pleasure. This fruitage of the Cross is not
the fruitage that God gives to the sons of evil as seems to be
the just fruitage of these thieves crucified beside me. In
reality this Cross is the crown of my life, and some day the
world will see it, and take Me unto itself, and the Cross will
have become a throne."

It is the word of justification and comfort that Jesus gives the
broken-hearted Mary. It is the word of God to woman. "Now we see
through a glass darkly, but then face to face." In Jesus, the son
of Mary, we see what the world will be like 'when the years have
died away.'

It was on these special occasions that he so frequently was inspired.
Easter Day, for instance, with its many services and huge congregations
stimulated him to the utmost, and to many of us it seemed as if we stood
in one of the vestibules of immortality, certainly in the temple of this
man's faith. He preached at both the eight and the eleven o'clock
services, and each time with undiminished vigor and clarity of thought.
In the interim, he personally greeted all the parishioners who remained
after the first service for breakfast in the parish house.

Frank Nelson loved the ministry, and his convictions glowed and radiated
pervasively. Innumerable scenes flood the memory, and I recall an
ordinary Sunday which included the early celebration of the Holy
Communion at eight forty-five A.M.; an address to his Chapel
Class at nine forty-five; and a sermon at eleven o'clock; in addition to
all these he went, in the afternoon, to a labor union memorial serv