invitation to Chicago, I sent my reply for transmission to the
people of All Souls Church this morning. I choose this same time to
announce to you my decision.

At the beginning of my consideration of the problem, I found
questions of personal inclination and comfort inevitably to the
fore. For twelve years minus one month, I have lived and labored in
New York City. Every particle of moral energy which I possess, I
have invested here. Nearly all of my friends are associated with
this community. Especially am I bound by ties of deepest reverence
and affection to this church. Here are memories of joy and sorrow
and great trial which are more truly a part of me than the voice
with which I speak, or the hand with which I turn these pages. It
[3] needed but this single summons to teach me what I had not
known--how deeply my roots are struck into the soil of this place,
and how great the pain and hazard of their exposure, removal and
replanting.

It very soon became clear to me, however, that personal
considerations could rightly have but little part in the settlement
of this problem. In no spirit of bravado, but in simplest
recognition of the truth, I say to you that I believe I would have
been betraying the profession which I have sworn to serve had I
permitted conditions of personal affection, however lovely and
precious, to determine my decision in this case. I take seriously
the fact of my ordination--that as a minister of religion I have
been "set apart," as the traditional phrase has it, to the high
purpose of propagating an idea, championing a cause, seeking the
best and the highest that I know in terms of God and of his holy
will. I am here, in other words, not to make or to keep friends, not
to enjoy pleasant associations of hand and heart, not even to serve
a particular church, but to serve, perhaps at the cost of these
other and more personal things, the great idea of which I speak. To
allow my individual sentiments to fix the place and fashion of my
professional service, would be to me as dastardly a thing as to
allow considerations of profit or prestige to make decision. Not
even my wife or my children could interfere in this case. My problem
was to determine where I could best advance the ideals to which I
have given my life--where I could find the weapons or tools best
fitted to my hand for the doing of my work--and there to stand. To
remain in this church and city might be infinitely desirable to me
as a