ecially if
they involve expense; or, as I have said before, interfere with
political or economic progress. Pulpit preaching is the smallest item
in the entire programme of a preacher, especially in such a
neighbourhood and in such a church. If a preacher wants an audience,
all he has to do is to step outside his church door, stand on a box,
and the audience is ready-made. It is miscellaneous and cosmopolitan;
it is respectful and multitudinous. When I discovered this, I
proceeded to act on my convictions, and copy, to the extent of getting
an audience, at least, the Socialist propagandist; and I proceeded to
work _with_ the people around me instead of _for_ them. There were no
lines of demarkation to my activity. I touched the life of the
community at every angle, sometimes entering as a fool where an angel
would fear to tread.

I was called upon to visit a poor couple who lived in a rear tenement.
They were of the unattached; had no ecclesiastical connections
whatever. I saw that the old man, who lay on a couch, was dying. He
was scarcely able to speak, but managed to express a desire that I
sing to him; so, as there was no one present but his wife and myself
to hear it, I sang. This inspired the old man to sing himself. He
coughed violently, tried to clear his throat, pulled himself together,
and sang after me a line of "Jesus, Lover of my Soul." This was very
touching, but the solemnity was severely jarred by following that line
by the first line of: "Little Brown Jug, don't I love you!" So between
the Little Brown Jug and the sacred poetry of the church he wound up,
dying with his head on my knee.

There was an insurance of thirty dollars on his life. I informed the
undertaker, and did what I could to comfort the old woman who was now
entirely alone in the world. One of the missionaries of the church
came next day and helped to make arrangements for the funeral which
was to take place in the afternoon. They had not been long in that
alley and knew nobody in it, and when I arrived to conduct the funeral
service at three o'clock in the afternoon, there was a little crowd of
people around the door, and from the inside came agonized yells from
the old woman.

I opened the door and marched in. I found the undertaker in the act of
taking the body out of the casket and laying it on the lounge in the
corner. The old woman was on her knees, wringing her hands and begging
him in the name of God not to do it. I asked for a