ame time came Elia W. Peattie and Ida Doolittle Fleming.
Mrs. Fleming and her husband helped me organize a Congregational
Church which, when organized, was a means of support.

The church was in a growing section of the city but I could not be
persuaded to live there. I lived where I thought my life was most
serviceable--on "the bottoms."

One night after a few days' involuntary fast I found in the hut two
cents. To the city I went and bought two bananas--one I ate on the way
back and the other I put in my hip pocket.

There were no streets, no lights, no sidewalks in that region. As I
came to a railroad arch on the edge of the squatter community I saw a
figure emerge from the deep shadows. I knew instantly I was to be held
up, but as life was rather cheap down there I was not sure what would
accompany the assault. A second figure emerged and when I came to
within a few yards of them, I whipped the banana from my pocket and
pointing it as one would a revolver I said--"Move a muscle, either of
you, and I'll blow your brains out!"

"Gee!" one of them muttered; "it's Mr. Irvine."

They belonged to a gang of young toughs who lived in a dug-out on the
banks of the river. Some of them had brothers in my school. There were
about a dozen of them. They had hinted several times that they would
clean me out when they had time, but they had delayed their plan. I
took these fellows to my hut and we talked for hours.

When I produced the banana they laughed vociferously and invited me to
their "hole." Next evening they gave a reception and, I suppose, fed
me on stolen property. They had a stove--a few old mattresses and some
dry-goods boxes.

I held their attention that night for four hours while I told the
story of Jean Valjean. Next day we were all photographed together on a
pile of stones near the "hole."

After that these fellows protected the chapel and made themselves
useful in their way. In less than a year afterward half of them had
gone to honest work; the rest went the way of the transgressor, to the
penetentiary and the reform school.

This period was one of total rejection by any means--powerful
influences were at work to render my labour void--but they were offset
for a time by the finer influences of life. I gave a series of
addresses in Tabor College, Iowa, and they were the beginning of an
awakening among the students. After the last word of the last address
the student about whom the president and faculty