Mr. Nelson was one of the three founders of the Council of Protestant Churches. No small detail was above him, and with Jesse Halsey he rummaged through second-hand stores for furniture for the first office. With the ministers of other churches he worked in closest cooperation, and together they fought the Cox Gang, supported the Social Agencies, and many other activities to which the civic-minded and church-minded in Cincinnati gave unstintingly of their devotion. The Reverend John F. Herget, the distinguished former minister of another downtown church, the Ninth Street Baptist, says, "For twenty-five years we labored together and the passing years only added to my confidence in his intellectual and spiritual integrity. He was a real friend, and when my only son died, he was the first minister in Cincinnati to step through my doorway. I can never forget it. Do you wonder that I loved him and cherish his memory? We were very different in many ways but those differences never deprived us of mutual respect and deep affection." Without a doubt, ministers of all Protestant churches regarded him as the foremost clergyman in the city. In 1901 Mr. Nelson was elected to membership in the Clergy Club of Cincinnati, an organization which is composed of many of the leading Protestant ministers. On the occasion of the club's twenty-fifth anniversary in 1919, Dr. Dwight M. Pratt, then of the Walnut Hills Congregational Church, wrote a witty and apt characterization of each member. The following is his superb sketch of Mr. Nelson: