ears, though many other attractive positions were offered
him. Upon him Mr. Nelson leaned as on no other. Through the years he has
performed the larger part of a clergyman's office, and though not
ordained is often called "Reverend." He took over the multitudinous
details of a highly organized parish as did or could no other assistant
or paid parish worker; consequently, Mr. Nelson was able to devote his
time to many civic enterprises, and to play a vital role in the national
life of the Episcopal Church. To have rendered such a service means
that he is completely self-effacing and richly merited Mr. Nelson's
tribute: "I would not know how to get on without him."

The phenomenal development of the parish house as a community center
kept pace with the striking growth of the church. During Mr. Nelson's
rectorship the communicant list of the parish expanded from 599 in 1900
to 2089 in 1939; the number of contributors to the budget from 200 to
1002; the parish and missionary budgets from $15,103.00 in 1900 to
$77,493.00 in 1927, to cite a high year; the Endowment Fund from
$11,770.00 in 1900 to $531,384.00 in 1939. In a way it seemed as if Mr.
Nelson had only to walk down Fourth Street and the money met him! In any
case, in the prosperous years it flowed in steadily from a people given
to generosity. One morning he met a parishioner who had been abroad
during the past year, and the man asked Mr. Nelson to accompany him to
his bank. Taking the rector to his safety deposit box, he handed over a
thousand dollar bond saying, "I haven't done anything for Christ Church
in a long time." One Sunday morning in the course of the notices (with
him, announcements were really an art) Mr. Nelson spoke of his friend,
Dr. Paul Wakefield, who had been left stranded in China during the
Communist uprising of 1927, and from whom he had just received a letter.
The special offering that morning, together with contributions sent in
over the week, amounted to five hundred dollars.

In the course of the great forty years of Mr. Nelson's ministry, a long
series of extraordinary gifts was made, including the parish house
already mentioned, memorial windows, an altar, an organ, and numberless
others, all indicative of the liberality of the people. These gifts were
grandly climaxed by the erection of a chapel to commemorate the
Centennial of Christ Church. It was designed to express the beauty,
mystery, and nobility of the Christian faith, and to provi