CHAPTER XXIV

A GOLDEN YEAR: 1900-1901

" That ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with
all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height; and to know the
love of Christ, which passeth knowledge."—Ephesians 3 : 17-19.

" It seems something of a paradox, but nothing has made me feel so much at
home in New York as going away. So many people have written me notes or
spoken to me—telling me this or that, of some sermon or letter or little 'confab'
that had meant something to them—that I have suddenly felt that I really be¬
longed to you, and found my heart quickening at the thought of coming back home."
—Maltbie Davenport Babcock, "Letters from Egypt and Palestine," p. 1.

I ACCEPT as from God and for God the call
which you have sent me." When these words
from the Rev. Dr. Maltbie Davenport Bab¬
cock were received in the middle of November, 1899,
the people of the Brick Church, with their pastor,
who had stood by the ship until a new helmsman
should be found, knew that they were accepting a
great sacrifice from the man who was coming to
them. Yet because of their belief in the unpar¬
alleled importance of the work to which they called
him, they had not hesitated to urge upon him his
removal from the Brown Memorial Presb5i;erian
Church in Baltimore to the Brick Church in New
York; and he, on his part, when once the path of
duty was clear to him, did not stop because it de¬
manded sacrifice.

One of his intimate friends, to whom he went for
counsel, * has shared with us the knowledge of what

* Dr. Charles Cuthbert Hall.

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