ordained is often called "Reverend." He took over the multitudinous details of a highly organized parish as did or could no other assistant or paid parish worker; consequently, Mr. Nelson was able to devote his time to many civic enterprises, and to play a vital role in the national life of the Episcopal Church. To have rendered such a service means that he is completely self-effacing and richly merited Mr. Nelson's tribute: "I would not know how to get on without him." The phenomenal development of the parish house as a community center kept pace with the striking growth of the church. During Mr. Nelson's rectorship the communicant list of the parish expanded from 599 in 1900 to 2089 in 1939; the number of contributors to the budget from 200 to 1002; the parish and missionary budgets from $15,103.00 in 1900 to $77,493.00 in 1927, to cite a high year; the Endowment Fund from $11,770.00 in 1900 to $531,384.00 in 1939. In a way it seemed as if Mr. Nelson had only to walk down Fourth Street and the money met him! In any case, in the prosperous years it flowed in steadily from a people given to generosity. One morning he met a parishioner who had been abroad during the past year, and the man asked Mr. Nelson to accompany him to his bank. Taking the rector to his safety deposit box, he handed over a thousand dollar bond saying, "I haven't done anything for Christ Church in a long time." One Sunday morning in the course of the notices (with him, announcements were really an art) Mr. Nelson spoke of his friend, Dr. Paul Wakefield, who had been left stranded in China during the Communist uprising of 1927, and from whom he had just received a letter. The special offering that morning, together with contributions sent in over the week, amounted to five hundred dollars. In the course of the great forty years of Mr. Nelson's ministry, a long series of extraordinary gifts was made, including the parish house already mentioned, memorial windows, an altar, an organ, and numberless others, all indicative of the liberality of the people. These gifts were grandly climaxed by the erection of a chapel to commemorate the Centennial of Christ Church. It was designed to express the beauty, mystery, and nobility of the Christian faith, and to provide for the many services for which the large church was unsuited. The Chapel was largely a thank-offering on the part of parishioners and many others who had found in Christ Church a spiritual home for which they were profoundly grateful. Another remarkable aspect of this gift was its conception in the uncertain days of 1917.