de for the
many services for which the large church was unsuited. The Chapel was
largely a thank-offering on the part of parishioners and many others who
had found in Christ Church a spiritual home for which they were
profoundly grateful. Another remarkable aspect of this gift was its
conception in the uncertain days of 1917.
As the years brought the ever-changing conditions of city life, and as
civic institutions, social agencies, and the public schools afforded
gymnasiums, swimming pools, playgrounds, and social centers such as were
scarcely known in the first decades of Mr. Nelson's ministry, he
continued to believe in the religious motive which Christ Church gave to
all these recreational and social activities. To the end of his days he
held that religious faith gives to social work an enthusiasm, a personal
fervor, and a genuineness without which the one thing needful is
lacking. He led his people to see in the drinking fountain outside the
parish house a symbol of the Church's undying service to the world of
men. The fact that passers-by, whether on foot or in pleasure car or
truck, stopped to quaff of its ice-cold water was to him an expression
of man's eternal need for the water of life, a need which, please God,
would always be met by a church whose gospel resides in the nether
springs of God's loving purpose for the children of men.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Frank H. Nelson.
[5] Frank H. Nelson, _Centennial Address_, May 17, 1917.
[6] Frank H. Nelson, _Year Books_, 1902 and 1903.
[7] Mr. Nelson's report, _Year Book_, 1908.
_The Shepherd
Among His
Flock_
"_And he shall stand and feed his flock in the
strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the
name of the Lord his God: and they shall
abide ... and this man shall be our peace._"
--_Micah 5:4_
3
A Cincinnati taxi-cab driver said to me, "Frank Nelson was sure a real
man. If you had a million dollars, you got a fifteen minute funeral
service; if you had twenty-five cents, you got a fifteen minute service.
He was just as concerned over the family with two rooms as the one with
twenty." This man had lived all his life in the Queen City, and had
driven Mr. Nelson to innumerable services as far back as the days of
horse-cabs, and though he was not aware of the restraint and brevity of
the Prayer Book Service, he unwittingly put his finger on the very pulse
of Mr. Nelson's ministry.
In all relationships with people, Fran
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