went immediately to her bedside.
Though the operation was not until midnight, he stayed with her through
the hours of waiting, joked to keep up her courage, and saw her through
the ordeal and was there when she came out of the anesthetic. It turned
out that the young lady was the daughter of a Methodist Bishop, and one
can imagine her parents' gratitude when they learned over the phone that
Mr. Nelson was with her. It was the sort of thing he loved to do, and
people could not say enough of his help during such times of stress.
There was a peculiar radiancy to his ministry which issued from this
alacrity, the special glow that surrounds all lives that are nobly
unselfish. He never spared himself, not even in his later years when
illness had laid its relentless hand upon him who had always been robust
and free of physical infirmities.

In a parish as diverse as that of Christ Church, there were unnumbered
happenings of a tragic-comic nature, and they all bespoke his special
place in the hearts of his people. Howard Bacon was once closeted in the
parish house office on a certain winter's night with a man who became
definitely and increasingly insane. Greatly alarmed, he succeeded in
locating Mr. Nelson, who arrived in evening clothes; together they got
the man into a car and drove him out to the distant suburb of College
Hill. On the way they were stalled by a flat tire, and Mr. Nelson
insisted on Mr. Bacon's staying in the car while he himself put on the
spare. In the midst of all this, the poor man's mind apparently cleared
briefly for he asked, "Do all great men come way out here to do things
like this?" In another instance a choir soloist developed melancholia
and refused to eat, and Mr. Nelson often fed her because she would eat
for him. Nothing was too trivial to be encompassed by his great heart.
Everyone, and sometimes it appeared as if everything, that was clothed
with any need was his responsibility and called out his limitless
sympathy. A friend jested that even the dog fights required his presence
and the remark seemed to carry a kernel of truth! Once he prayed with a
poor, broken-hearted woman who had lost her dearest possession, a pet
canary bird, and again he sat down and talked as one sportsman to
another with a friend who had lost a polo game. To this clergyman these
were the peculiar privileges of his position, and never duties. Parents,
with a true instinct for loving a man who was really good, wanted him