when Cincinnati was a small river
town of nine thousand inhabitants; looking at the present church
building which seats over one thousand people and is flanked by an
enormous and ever busy parish house, one finds it difficult to picture
Bishop Philander Chase meeting in that year with a group of men in the
home of Dr. Daniel Drake to lay the foundations of what was to become
one of the largest parishes in the Middle West. The first services were
held in a cotton factory, and the church slowly developed into a strong
parish, small in numbers but served by several very able rectors, one of
whom later became the Bishop of Virginia. As the first Episcopal Church
to be founded in Cincinnati, it was the parent of a number of other
parishes; but at the close of the nineteenth century it appeared that
the "mother-church" was about finished. Churches of other communions
located in the downtown district were going through the same transition.
The slump in finances by reason of removals created something akin to
panic in the fearful and timid vestrymen, but because of some loyal and
far-sighted women Christ Church was not disbanded. They wanted it to
mean to their children what it meant to them, and they gave assurance of
support in substantial ways.

These ardent supporters had a definite vision and plan. In 1897 Dr.
William S. Rainsford had come on from New York City and had packed old
Pike's Opera House for a week in Lent, and thrilled his hearers with the
recital of his efforts to anchor St. George's Church in the heart of
that great metropolis, and make it free to serve the community. When
Bishop Vincent of Southern Ohio wrote him about the difficulties of
Christ Church, he replied with this momentous letter:

I am going to give you the greatest proof I can of my love and
deep interest in Cincinnati. I have a plan for Christ Church.
Here it is. Take two of my men--let them work and live together;
they could take a mighty strong hold, and do a really good work.
I feel sure that in the future many a position of great
difficulty can be much better occupied by two men, pulling
together, than by one alone. There are two magnificent
fellows--dear, dear boys after my own heart--who have been here
with me for years; and I shall be lost without them, if you call
them. Stein (Alexis) is the ablest preacher of his age (28) in
our Church in these United States today. Nelson (Frank) is a
strong, capable man, ful