Northwestern Bible School - Scroll Yearbook (Minneapolis, MN)

Page 31 text:

In my study, with tny assistant, Wm Francis, and my secretary, Etta McCall ence, and even to destroy the reach of personality. It is like standing up before the General Grant, the giant of the Sequoias; it dwarfs a man, I sensed that fact the first year, but I deliberately decided to make but one more move, and that if possible to a young and growing city, and to a down-town church. In 1889, the First Baptist Church of Lafayette, Indiana, had provided me both the means and the time for attendance upon the Baptist Anniversaries at Boston. At that time the second Tremont Temple existed and some kind officer of that church showed me all through the building and explained to me fully Lorimer ' s ideal institution for the heart of a city. The subject enamored and enthralled me, and I felt even then that some day I should attempt for some other city what George Lorimer had accomplished for Boston. Two years later I was on the Baptist Anniversaries ' program in Philadel¬ phia to speak for the Home Mission Society on “Immigration.” While in Philadelphia I visited Grace Temple and was shown its social rooms and arrangements At once my ideal increased. I saw that a Tremont Temple was not enough That in addition to a preaching station, a great social center should characterize the city-center endeavor, and I dreamed of the day when my opportunity should come! When the call to the First Baptist pulpit of Minneapolis was extended to me, in the early part of the year of 1897, I had to decide between three churches They were alike in size, kindred in historic standing, and if any one of them had approached me wholly apart from the others, I would probably have accepted its call, for I had decided to quit Chicago for a city more nearly my size. The decision between them was made solely on the ground of the location, First Baptist Church, Minneapolis It was in the downtown, and seemed to suggest a possible Tremont and Grace Temple for a possible West Boston or Philadelphia. In my domestic life I proposed to but one woman. She is the present Mrs. Riley, and the mother of my six children, Chicago having added two sons, Mason Hewitt and Herbert Wilde, and Minneapolis, a daughter Eunice, and two more sons, W. B., Jr T and John Branson. [ 23 ]

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up, I accepted—six months before our marriage—a call to the First Baptist Church, of Bloomington, Illinois, thereby becoming successor to Dr. John L. Jackson. This city was all the more attractive to us because it was Mrs. Riley’s birthplace, and a city that held the most of her blood relatives Here, for two and one-half years, we witnessed a remarkable work. The house was often packed, and many sought the Lord Among the baptized was the pastor ' s wife, while to the cradle roll was added the pastor ' s eldest son, now Dr. Arthur Howard Riley This pastorate was characterized by two outstanding experiences The mayor, a man who often attended my church, permitted a wide-open town, and gambling became the order of the day. Gambling institutions existed in a score or more of places. I selected one week for my subject, “Bloomington’s Burning Disgrace—Gambling! ' ’ and after having prepared my sermon, I went, in company with a newspaper reporter and the Y M. C. A. secretary, to per¬ sonally visit seven of these gambling holes They were attended by from fif¬ teen to three hundred each. Returning to my office I put on the finishing touches, the thunder of indignation and the lightning of exposure! The ser¬ mon was printed in three newspapers on Monday. Many gamblers quit the town; but some two hundred indictments of managers and pa¬ trons ensued. Gam¬ bling, I understand, has never flourished in Bloomington since. It was in this pas¬ torate also that I en¬ countered my first or¬ ganized official oppo¬ sition. It was led by men of means and of good social standing. It fruited in a few stormy board meet¬ ings, and then the op¬ position suddenly col¬ lapsed, owing to the fact that a state audi¬ tor uncovered the con¬ duct of my opponents, who were found to have been systemati¬ cally robbing the Building a n d Loan Association in which they were chief offi¬ cials This experience taught me a lesson es¬ sential to success in the pas torate, namely, that if one knows he is right, he need fear no First Baptist Church, Minneapolis 1897 organized opposition. God lives, and justice, though slow, seldom miscarries. Laboring under the false impression that the bigger the city, the greater the opportuni¬ ty for service, I went to Chicago in 1893 and became the pastor of a newly organized church, sixty mem¬ bers having asked for letters from the First Baptist Church to ef¬ fect the Calvary or¬ ganization, In four years and six months I saw this company grow to 500 in num¬ ber, and was perfectly disillusioned concern¬ ing the relation be¬ tween the size of a city and the extent of the opportunity. A big city is the poorest place in the world for any preacher except its most notable one. Its very e ftent suffices to reduce opportunity, to circumscribe influ-

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During the early yean of my Minneapolis pastorate In my ministerial life I have never flirted with a single church to the point of permit¬ ting a call, unless I was first assured of God that it was His will that I should ac¬ cept it; and that is why no newspaper has ever carried a report of any call extended to the pastor of the First Church, Minne¬ apolis. I have believed it to be unethical and unchristian, and in something like thir¬ ty instances, involving most attractive pul¬ pits in the states and Canada, and college and seminary positions, I have killed such movements by a positive declaration of “No 11 and No use while yet it was in the incipient committee stage. The certainty that I am past the dead line seems to exist in the circumstance that for two years now no pulpit has approached me with a propo¬ sition. I came to Minneapolis to succeed Way- land Hoyt, a most capable preacher, an orator of the first order, a loyal and sound theologian. I found the church well housed Its property was valued at $160,000. The membership was poorly organized; the young people’s society, the Christian Endeavor, was practically the only effective body operating. The audiences were small, three to four hundred; the Sunday School smaller; the prayer meetings not large but good in spirit; the membership 660 (by revision was immediately reduced to 585) ; the amount of money raised for all purposes was about $14,000 per annum, There was in the church considerable wealth, some degree of culture and a distinct company of consecrated believers. Owing to the house in which they worshipped, the presence in the member¬ ship of George A Pillsbury and family, Mrs. W. H Dunwoody, and several older families like the Wolvertons, Hoblits, the Browns, Cooks, Huntingtons, the Barnes brothers, Potters, and others who had been rich, but who, in the panic of 93-’97, had lost practically all, together with a rising company of young men who were now making money (a few of them headed for the mil¬ lionaire class), pride was a characteristic of the First Church From the first, this spirit seemed to me to be bigger than its success warranted, and I set myself deliberately to the task of trying to democratize the institution. Through an agreement entered into before I accepted the call, I was able to democratize its government, taking the same from the hands of five ruling trustees, the majority of the trustee board, and putting it into the hands of the Advisory Board, made up of all officers—twenty-five to thirty people, By the abolition of the pew-rental system, attendance was popularized and outsiders began to frequent the services By carrying every matter of vital moment to regularly appointed and widely advertised business meetings, the government of the church passed into the hands of the membership. By preaching on subjects that were either of constant concern or of instant public interest, the crowds increased to a comfortable house full [24] -