“One important fact began to make itself plain, and that was that the modern young man is more or less discouraged by the growing belief that all things are falling into the hands of great corporations and trusts, and that the individual no longer has much chance. My father had been more or less of a fatalist in his view of life, and often quoted Emerson to me, to the effect that the dice of life are loaded, and fall according to a plan. My mother leaned to the doctrine of Calvin,—to predestination. I inherited a streak of the same feeling, and the conditions I observed made me feel that there was probably something in the theory. I had to battle this down and convince myself that we are what we choose to make ourselves. Then I had to set to work to counteract the discouraging view taken by the young people about me.” “You were a Methodist, then?” “Yes, I was admitted to preach in that body, but it was not long before I had an attack of transcendentalism, and fell out with the Methodist elder of my district. The elder was wholly justified. He was a dry old gentleman, with a fund of common sense. After one of my flights, in which I advocated perfection far above the range of humankind, he came to me and said: ‘My dear young man, don’t you know that people have to live on this planet?’ The rebuke struck me as earthly then, but it has grown in humor and common sense since. “I left voluntarily. I knew I was not satisfactory, and so I went away. I married when I was twenty. I preached in several places, and obtained a charge at Columbus, Ohio.” A MINISTER’S TRUE IDEAL. “When did you begin to have a visible influence on affairs, such as you have since exercised?” “Just as soon as I began to formulate and follow what I considered to be the true ideal of the minister.” “And that ideal was?” “That the question to be handled by a preacher must not be theological, but sociological.” “How did this conviction work out at Columbus?” “The church became too small for the congregation, and so we had to move to the opera house. “My work there showed me that any place may be a pulpit,—editorial chair, managerial chair, almost anything. I began to realize that a whole and proper work would be to get hold of the Christian forces outside the ecclesiastical machine and get them organized into activity. I was not sure about my plan yet, however, so I left Columbus for Newtonville, Massachusetts, and took time to review my studies. There I came under the influence of Phillips Brooks. When I began once more to get a clear idea of what I wanted to do, I went to Baltimore, on a call, and preached two years at Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church. “I came to Chicago in 1872. Plymouth Church offered an absolutely free pulpit, and an opportunity to work out some plans that I thought desirable.” HIS WORK IN CHICAGO. “How did you go about your work in this city?”