afternoons, and, catching some of Robert's
ways and spirit, he gradually brought his own chapel and teaching more
and more into line with the Elgood Street undertaking. So that the
venture of the two men began to take ever larger proportions; and,
kindled by the growing interest and feeling about him, dreams began to
rise in Elsmere's mind which as yet he hardly dared to cherish which
came and went, however, weaving a substance for themselves out of each
successive incident and effort.

Meanwhile he was at work on an average three evenings in the week
besides the Sunday. In West End drawing-rooms his personal gift had
begun to tell no less than in this crowded, squalid East; and as his
aims became known, other men, finding the thoughts of their own hearts
revealed in him, or touched with that social compunction which is one
of the notes of our time, came down and became his helpers. Of all the
social projects of which that Elgood Street room became the centre,
Elsmere was, in some sense, the life and inspiration. But it was not
these projects themselves which made this period of his life remarkable.
London at the present moment, if it be honey-combed with vice and
misery, is also honey-combed with the labor of ever expanding charity.
Week, by week men and women of like gifts and energies with Elsmere
spend themselves, as he did, in the constant effort to serve and to
alleviate. What _was_ noticeable, what _was_ remarkable in this work of
his, was the spirit, the religious passion which, radiating from him,
began after a while to kindle the whole body of men about him. It was
from his Sunday lectures and his talks with the children, boys and
girls, who came in after the lecture to spend a happy hour and a half
with him on Sunday afternoons, that in later years hundreds of men and
women will date the beginnings of a new absorbing life. There came a
time, indeed, when, instead of meeting criticism by argument, Robert was
able simply to point to accomplished facts. 'You ask me,' he would
say in effect, 'to prove to you that men can love, can make a new and
fruitful use, for daily life and conduct, of a merely human Christ.
Go among our men, talk to our children, and satisfy yourself. A little
while ago scores of these men either hated the very name of Christianity
or were entirely indifferent to it. To scores of them now the name of
the teacher of Nazareth, the victim of Jerusalem, is dear and sacred;
his life, his death, h