ls of which spoke of the battles of the weary travellers who
had preceded me. I protected myself as best I could until the dawn,
when I started for Springfield, a disciple for a day of the
no-breakfast fad.

Things were arranged differently at the next interview. I was the
guest of the leaders in that work and was engaged as "Religious Work
Director" for one year. I think I was the first man in the United
States to be known officially by that title.

The Board of Directors was composed of men efficient to an
extraordinary degree. The General Secretary was a worker of great
energy and business capacity and as high a moral type as the highest.
He was orthodox in theology and the directors were orthodox in
sociology. It was a period when I was moving away from both
standpoints.

To express a very modern opinion in theology would disturb the
churches--the moral backers of the institution; to express an advanced
idea in sociology would alienate the rich men--the financial backers.
A month after I began my work I "supplied" the pulpit of a church in
the New Haven suburbs called the Second Congregational Church of Fair
Haven. The chairman of the pulpit supply committee was a member of the
Board of Directors of the Y.M.C.A.

Gradually I drifted away from the Association toward the church. The
former was building a new home and many people were glad of an excuse
not to give anything toward its erection. So any utterance of mine
that seemed out of the common was held up to the solicitor. An address
on War kept the telephone ringing for days. It was as if Christianity
had never been heard of in New Haven. Labour men asked that the
address be printed and subscribed money that it might be done, but an
appeal to the teachings of Jesus on the question of war was lauded by
the sinners and frowned upon by the saints.

With the General Secretary I never had an unkind word. Though a man of
boundless energy he was a man in supreme command of himself. We knew
in a way that we were drifting apart and acted as Christians toward
each other. What more can men do?

Mr. Barnes, the director, who was chairman of the pulpit supply
committee of the church, kept urging me to give my whole time to the
church. Every day for weeks he drove his old white horse to my door
and talked it over. I refused the call to the pastorate but divided
my time between them. For the Y.M.C.A. my duties were:

To conduct mass meetings for men in a theatre.
T