The plan and spirit of St. George's was to utilize any available instrumentality to bring to bear the Church's influence in the promotion of social as well as individual righteousness. So a wide range of civic and of social movements enlisted the rector's ready sympathies and active co-operation. With characteristic energy he threw himself into the forefront of the struggle for the uplift of humanity. He realized that men were turning from relationship to organized Christianity and he would reach out after them into the highways or the tenements and compel them to come in. With many-sided loving interest he sought to draw them to accept the service offered in the name of the divine Man of Men "who went about doing good." He felt that the religious instinct, unsatisfied by the old presentations of religious life and hope, had become sluggish through disuse. It needed spiritual quickening truly, but is ready to respond to loving deeds.

The corner-stone of the new choir-room was laid in October, 1892. The growth of the choir had made increased accommodation an imperative necessity. The vestry bought a strip of the adjoining land and paid $1,280.45 toward the cost of the building, the balance, $2,965, having been collected by the organist and choir-master, W. S. Chester. The new room was heated with steam and lit by electricity, and proved a great convenience and material help in sustaining the high standard of the musical work of the parish. The choir numbered 83 members. The rector said: "No words of mine. can be too strong to express my sense of the value of Mr. Chester's services. The spirit and work of our choir leave very little to be desired."

The evening Trade School for boys was a development of the Boys' Club. In the fall of 1892, the house 520 East Eleventh Street was leased, altered, and fitted up for industrial work. The original purpose of the boys' club was to get them off the streets and interest and amuse them. Gradually trade classes were formed, mainly for recreation; then the mere recreation came to be a minor feature. During this winter, the trade school grew to 200 members, divided into two departments, main and junior, under competent direction and instruction in drawing, carpentering, and other manual work. A fund of $5,000 was raised for its support, largely collected by the efforts of one interested lady of the congregation. The practical usefulness of the trade school was thus demonstrated and better facilities were before long provided.

The Boys' Club, before it was merged into the Trade School, provided only for boys under fifteen years of age. But as only

boys over eighteen were eligible for the men's club, this left those between fifteen and eighteen years of age, the most critical period in a boy's life, uncared for. Therefore the Battalion Club was organized. There were included in this club three separate departments, but closely associated through having one common meeting-place. These were the military, the literary and social, and the athletic departments. The boys according to their tastes identified themselves with one or more of these. The management was in the hands of a committee of which one of the clergy was the chair

man.

The death of Charles J. Wills, November 28, 1892, was a most serious bereavement to his rector and fellow-laborers for Christ. "He was a man who gave himself to serve his fellows.' It was an act of special courage and self-sacrifice to go down as he did to live in Stanton Street to carry on that work. The strain told on his health; he died at his post, dearly loved by all who knew him and his loss was irreparable. His funeral in the Church was largely attended, not only by the vestry and his fellow-workers but by members of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew even from distant cities who honored his example and had acknowledged his leadership; and people from the sweatshops and others from the Stanton Street neighborhood gathered to pay their last tribute of regard for a man through whom so many had been made better and stronger for the work of life.

The care of the Stanton Street Mission now devolved on the Rev. A. H. Locke. The Sunday-school was flourishing though sorely pressed for teachers for its five hundred children, and all the other agencies for good were actively in operation. The Tee-to-tum at 153 Essex Street, established in the previous year through the liberality of Mr. R. Fulton Cutting, was working well. The vestry, however, in March, 1894, decided it was wise and best to make over to the bishop of the diocese or to such party as he should designate, the responsibility for the maintenance of the services and work in this mission field, with the understanding that the whole property should be conveyed to the Cathedral Trustees, or other body corporate, whenever said corporation is prepared to receive it. The Old Epiphany House thus became the Pro-cathedral and so remained until the vestry authorized the deeding of it, with the Bishop's sanction, in 1903 to the New York Protestant Episcopal City Mission Society; which transfer, however, was not finally effected and recorded until the spring of 1906.

CHAPTER XII

THE RAINSFORD PERIOD

(1893-1905)

WITH the beginning of 1893, Dr. Rainsford had completed ten years of labor in St. George's Church. During that time vast strides had been made in the number of persons ministered to, the organization of agencies for good, the increase of the real property of the parish, and the growth of the endowment fund. The number of individuals connected with the parish had grown from about 2,000 to 5,472, to which should be added 2,000 in the Stanton Street Mission and 500 in the Avenue A Mission-a total of 7,972 souls. The communicants had increased from 700 to 3,185 at the Church, 1,000 in the Stanton Street Mission, and 200 in Avenue A-a total of 4,385. The baptisms had increased from 99 in the first year of this period to 239 in the last; confirmations from 119 to 232; marriages, 34 to 82; burials from 38 to 117. The services had been largely multiplied on week days and Sundays. The number of organizations and activities maintained in the parish house had grown from 10 to 25, and the volunteer workers from 198 to 410. The property had been increased by the addition of the Memorial House, the Seaside Cottage, and the Stanton Street Mission, while a house had been purchased which stood on leased ground in Sixteenth Street for the Deaconesses, and the Avenue A Mission and the Boys' Industrial Trade School occupied rented quarters. The endowment had grown from $80,000 to $268,836.32, the net income from which was very close to $10,000. The total receipts from January 1, 1883, to April, 1884 (fifteen months), were $45,169.35, as compared with the receipts from April, 1892 to 1893 (twelve months), $118,878.33. A most notable record of parochial progress.

The following pen-picture of the Memorial House and its activi ties, as they existed at that time is taken from the year book of 1894: