Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/103

 THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVEMENT 77 scriptions were few and small. On November 28 Mr. Gates wrote in The Standard: We are constantly importuned for news of our progress. We are urged by the brethren in the country to keep them informed on every phase of the movement through the columns of The Standard. Pastors and laymen in all parts of the West feel almost as if life would not be worth living if this work should fail. The thing that to us is marvelous and inexplicable is that we get so few proffers of practical help to keep it from failure. We ought not to disguise the alarming fact that the subscriptions we have secured from indi- viduals and churches outside of the Chicago Association are very few and the sum pledged aggregates scarcely the hundredth part of the amount required. We have worked with all our might as wisely and in ways as manifold as we have known how. If not always wisely or effectively, we have worked and are working diligently day and night. Yet the pastors are neither subscribing themselves nor laying the matter before their churches The present writer is not a Chicagoan. He does not live in this city. He never has lived in Chicago. He never expects to live in Chicago His sympathies and prejudices would lead him to leave Chicago to do her full share of this work. But having trod the streets of this city in eager quest for several months, having canvassed, with Dr. Goodspeed, every Baptist of any means in this city, having taken as accurate a measurement of the real means of the Baptists of this city as it seems possible to make, I am convinced that the Chicago Bap- tists have not that measure of wealth which places them under moral obli- gation to pledge four hundred thousand dollars to this cause. Using language as we ordinarily use it, they simply cannot do it The subscription is a popular subscription in Chicago. It has touched all classes of Baptists. The Baptist churches of Chicago have shown an enthusiasm and liberality such as has never before been exhibited by any body of Baptists in any city for any educational cause It is here as elsewhere a matter of single- hearted, disinterested philanthropy and nothing else. The persons to be benefited are not the Baptists of Chicago, but the youth of the West, of the present and the future generations, and through these the blessing will be carried to churches, communities, the nation, civilization, and the whole human family. The response of the churches was still most discouraging. In urging upon pastors the duty of presenting the cause to their churches, Mr. Gates again wrote in The Standard of December 12: Our dependence even for getting the facts before the people is on the pastors. And the facts are interesting. The theme when presented from the pulpit will come home to every family. It appeals to paternal love, it kindles youthful aspirations. The novelty of the theme, the great initial gift, the