is trying to set
free to a higher plane this tremendous question which is facing us, to
lift this tremendous relationship from regulation to the life of the
spirit. We want this church to face reality." Nevertheless, the
Commission marched from one defeat to another, but it still marches!
There was passed in 1931 one constructive piece of legislation bearing
on instruction in Christian marriage which was enacted largely through
the extremely forceful defense of Frank Nelson.
The same human touch which guided all his thought and effort was
apparent in his work on another Commission, namely, the Budget and
Program. He usually was chosen to present the report in the House of
Deputies, and it was always a masterly presentation. Like Gladstone, he
had the faculty of making people like figures, because he set them forth
in terms of human values or in what the newspaper writer calls
"human-interest" stories. This same humanness was delightfully manifest
on occasions when friends endeavoured to make him the presiding officer
or President of the House of Deputies. He would never consent, and
humorously said that if he became an official, he would have to attend
all the extra meetings and couldn't play golf!
In 1937 the General Convention met in Cincinnati. Though far from well
and worn out after the usual strenuous year in his parish, Mr. Nelson
gave up a large part of his vacation to assist in the arduous
preparations always entailed by such affairs. At the opening service in
the University Stadium he was selected by the Presiding Bishop to read
one of the Lessons, the deserved recognition of his place in diocese and
national church.
In the extensive work of forwarding the policies set up by the General
Conventions he was called upon, as one of the representative rectors, to
speak in many parts of the country. He was foremost in commending the
Nation-Wide-Campaign or budget plan of operation instituted in 1919, as
a means of re-awakening the church to a sense of national
responsibility. Despite heavy work in parish and city he never spared
himself, and willingly put his services at the command of the Presiding
Bishop. Only eight months before his death, he spent an entire week in
the Diocese of Massachusetts speaking two and three times a day to
groups of vestrymen on the forward work of the church.
When General Convention met in Kansas City in 1940, the first meeting
after Mr. Nelson's death, the President of the Hous
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