"You can't change me, old man. I am the last of the black Protestants." In this whimsical way Frank Nelson spoke of himself one day in conversation with a friend on some point of ritual. It is abundantly evident that he was in no way a bigoted churchman, and with all his fine, broad sympathies he stood forth as a Protestant. He represented that aspect of the Catholic-Protestant structure of the Episcopal Church, he conducted the services in Christ Church from that angle, his preaching reflected it, and the absence of the clerical collar emphasized it. There is a measure of truth in his droll description of himself.

In the first decades of this century Mr. Nelson was one of a group of broad-churchmen whose influence was just beginning to be felt. Theologically he was a liberal with reservations, and stood in what is now called "Central Anglicanism" in the sense of "essential orthodoxy, continuity, and breadth and liberality within limits, checked by the principle of discipline, and an outlook, above all, theocentric; fidelity to Christianity as the religion of the Incarnation, and of the Church viewed as Christ's mystical body."[13]

The truth is that he was different from certain brands of so-called liberals. Like many of them he was an individualist but not, as in the popular conception of that word, an eccentric. His individualism resided in his strong personality, whole and complete rather than partial. He had an immense scorn of the petty narrow-minded points of view. He said, "There is no one so narrow as the broad-minded liberal! Look out! Be sure that you do not develop a closed mind toward the other man's point of view!" Frank Nelson stood in the stream of the best traditions of historic Anglicanism. He had, for instance, a tremendous feeling of reverence for the Altar and the appointments for the celebration of the Holy Communion; and his manner of conducting the Lord's Supper brought that service very close to the most sensitive of worshipers. On the first Sunday of each month the Holy Communion was celebrated at eight and at eleven A.M., and he made it the chief factor in building up the younger members of the parish into the Church. Usually Christ Church was crowded for the first as well as the later service, and it was immensely impressive to contemplate the congregation that came at the early hour of eight o'clock from all parts of the city and from distant suburbs. There is communicated serenity as well as reverence in the stately, liturgical service, but that feeling-tone is dependent on the minister conducting it. Mr. Nelson was a medium for the communication of the very spirit of Christ in that service. The ancient, familiar words were given a fresh beauty by his manner and his natural, virile voice. His methods reflected certain qualities of his character. It was his custom to read the service up through the Sanctus from the north end of the Altar, moving to the center for the remainder, and at the moment of the consecration of the Bread and Wine to turn halfway around so that the congregation could see the blessing of the Elements. It was in part an observance of the Apostolic custom of the minister's standing behind the Altar and facing the congregation, and one which he had learned from his days at St. George's under Dr. Rainsford.

In a time of much disparagement, Frank Nelson and his parish upheld the fair reputation of the Church. Bishop Hobson says, "Many a minister and many a church have taken heart and courage because of his ministry." Because he was unafraid to experiment and venture on fresh approaches to old problems, he risked misunderstanding and criticism. He had a marked sense of the dignity of his office, and all who worked on the staff of Christ Church were aware that he was the rector, a czar if you will, but one with a gloved hand. He ran the parish, but not for his own sake nor from delight in power. As a matter of fact, he distrusted power, particularly when wielded by small men in the office of Bishop, and because of that distrust, and because of the democratic nature of the government of the Episcopal Church, he held the leadership of rectors to be equal in value to that of the Episcopate.

In the management of the parish, he was "a man set under authority." He expected hard work of those to whom he delegated responsibility. Though he occasionally interfered, he invariably backed up his leaders even when they were in the wrong. He did not hesitate to criticize: a retiring choir-master said to his successor, "He is a tyrant, and you won't last three months." After eighteen years, he is still there! There were those who sometimes found Mr. Nelson abrupt, but as they came to understand his temperament and to appreciate his insistence that things should be run decently and in order, they were the very ones who would have stood on their heads for him because his nature inspired endless devotion. It is easy to lose sight of human values in a large institution, but he was the kind of person who was quick to apologize for any rudeness, and if the instance had to do with some fine point of procedure, he would grin and say, "But I was right!"—and he was. A unique thing about his rectorship was his willingness to take the blame upon himself when something went wrong. He felt he was at fault for not having given his subordinates the right training. The conception he held of his office of rector impelled him to give each year a comprehensive report of his parish work along with an audited financial accounting of all monies that he had handled personally.

In the services of Christ Church, Frank Nelson's individuality found complete expression. The Prayer Book offices were marked by an absence of ceremonial, but filled with a profound simplicity and a noble dignity. People coming from other parishes and accustomed to considerable ritual and better architecture (Christ Church has been likened to a Moorish mosque!) learned that such externals occupy in reality a subordinate position in the Christian life, as the rector's manner and forceful preaching lifted them to the plane of spirit-filled worship. He was concerned not with the creation of an atmosphere in which to bathe with satisfaction one's feelings about God but with the living message of the Gospel. One came at last to love the old church building because there the spirit was fed, the mind enlightened, and the will impelled to action.

People came to be in his presence. They found a new, bright sense of the glory of religious faith; they felt how precious is the least of the human vessels into which God pours His Spirit. The man in himself communicated a personality so wholly infused with the grace of the Lord Jesus that his hearers were stirred to action, which result stems from the authentic note in preaching. "Effective preaching can only mean effective in the sense of doing God's work."[14] Frank Nelson did God's work. He stirred people to do God's work. The atmosphere of conviction generated by the preacher is due to his whole personality rather than to his words; hence the impact made upon his hearers at the moment of his speaking is never conveyed through the printed page. Its influence, however, continues in their lives, and measured by this standard Frank Nelson was a powerful and effective preacher. The gift of swift, magnetic, eloquent speech was his. Words with the quality and vigor of intuitive imagination poured out of him. Yet preaching was never easy for him, and as it was dominated by his characteristic intensity and fervor, he was nervous beforehand and exhausted afterward. His emotional range sometimes led him off the main thread of a discourse; at times he ranted; and more than once preached an entirely different sermon from the one outlined in his written notes. His preaching was "feeling warmed up to vision," and the word of God passed through him to men. He believed tremendously in preaching; there were few services in Christ Church at which he did not preach,[15] but he was not a so-called 53popular preacher; crowds did not constantly fill the pews. To some his driving power was wearing, and even some of his admirers would exclaim, "Oh, I do wish Mr. Nelson would not tear his throat so when he preaches." But his very force of delivery, and his vehemence were a part of the man, and he no more could have preached in another manner than have changed his stature.

But these characteristics had compensations or off-setting factors. After Mr. Nelson's exchange with the rector of St. Paul's Church, Rome, Italy in 1912, a certain dowager commented, "Mr. Lowrie's sermons made me feel comfortable, but Mr. Nelson makes me feel a miserable sinner!" A newcomer, on his first Sunday in Cincinnati, went to Christ Church intending to "sample" several churches before casting his lot with one. The choir came in, followed by a young, boyish-looking clergyman whom the man presumed to be the assistant. During the sermon Mr. Nelson continually entangled himself in his stole and gave the impression of one so inextricably caught up in his message that he was a part of it, stole and all! The newcomer was Frederick C. Hicks, later the President of the University of Cincinnati. He did not go elsewhere but continued at Christ Church and eventually became a vestryman.

Mr. Nelson did not talk in an amiable sort of way about the Christian virtues; his sermons, thank God, were not colorless essays on the doctrine of God, and the Church. He preached with abandon, and there issued forth a fiery stream of conviction that stabbed his hearers into life. Within those in whom the seed found good soil there was reproduced his hunger for righteousness, his integrity of character. What we heard from the pulpit of Christ Church was the product of hard-won battles, the forthrightness of a man stirred by his struggle to live as a follower of Jesus Christ. He was no respecter of persons but of personality, saying "We don't dare to be Christians." Some said Frank Nelson did not preach doctrinal sermons, but if not, then church doctrine needs another name, for this man preached the Christian faith, pouring it forth in great bucketfuls. If after hearing him one didn't know something about the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, then there is no such thing as doctrine.

The rector was sensitive about his failure to attract larger congregations, and deprecated his ability as a speaker. He was forever saying that he could not preach, and that he preached too long, but jested that he was too old to change! Once in the midst of an after-dinner speech, he paused to make an aside to his friend, J. Hollister Lynch, "Am I talking too long?" "Yes," whispered Dr. Lynch, but he kept right on! Cincinnati is not a church-going city like Pittsburgh, for instance, but, as one witty observer has remarked, "Cincinnati has fewer moral lapses!" In making judgments on this point, one should take into consideration the fact that there was a large Roman Catholic constituency, and that the predominant German population of Cincinnati which came in such large numbers during the middle of the nineteenth century, was definitely anti-religious. Christ Church, moreover, is a downtown church, and the greater number of the communicants live in suburbs. His parish took him for granted as was inevitable over a forty-year period, but when we recall his multiple civic associations, and the fact that whenever he spoke there was a religious foundation to his address and in his presence, we perceive that Mr. Nelson's preaching reached far beyond the bounds of Christ Church.

The sermons of Frank Nelson were pervaded with a fine ethical perception. He was in the succession of the ancient Hebrew prophets in their profound love of justice and concern for humanity. He had a keen, quick feeling for spiritual values, and succeeded in relating them in vital fashion to the throbbing stress of daily living. Beyond his piercing eloquence, captivating as it most certainly was, was the compelling fact that in his interpretation of the religious significance of human experience he stood forth like a pine tree towering above scraggly growth. No one can ever forget that tall, dynamic figure in the spacious pulpit of Christ Church preaching the Word of God with gripping power. It was not merely the power of virility and eloquence, but the power of grasp, of comprehension, the ability to communicate truth and make it come alive, and cry out for expression in the hearts and lives of his hearers. We felt the majesty of the human spirit, the impatience of sure faith with the rags and blemishes of doubt and cynicism. "Like rain upon the mown grass, as showers that water the earth," Frank Nelson poured out his soul, and revealed the grand proportions of human destiny.

In his beautiful address at the Helen S. Trounstine Memorial Service, a portion of which follows, we find one of the best examples of Mr. Nelson's ability to interpret human experience, as well as of his intuitive understanding of another's travail of soul:

And then her courage. There are the lesser courages and the greater. There are many who dare face danger and undertake hard tasks, and face ridicule and failure. It is a fine and a true courage and I do not underrate it. Helen Trounstine had it and had it to the full. She tackled hard tasks; she faced some men whose interests she opposed. She fought out her fights against all comers, and never flinched. She would go into the court or into the saloon or dance hall, the places of commercial recreation, and fight her fight with all, for what she believed to be right; and she won most of the time. It was a noble thing to see that delicate woman unafraid before the problems and evils of the world.

Yet that was not the finest courage she had. That other finer courage is the one that I would emphasize. It was given her to reconcile a spirit filled with high ideals and great desires, with a body weak, often bent and torn with pain, unsuited to the tasks she longed to do, until at last she was stricken with utter helplessness waiting for the end. For only a few brief years was her body adequate, even a little, to her will. And instead of bending before that limitation and saying that she could do nothing because of it, instead of growing bitter with resentment at a fate that had so burdened her, she but grappled with it the more determinedly. With utter courage of heart and mind, she fought her inner fight and won the victory of cheer and energy and peace. With no excuse and no complaints, and no relaxing of her will before the limitations of her strength, she lived and loved and served as if she had the health she longed for. The limitations of her stricken body meant the giving up of many dear desires, of hopes that would have made life sweet and joyous, of work she yearned to undertake.

Any of you who have had much to do with one stricken with a sore disease, who knows he never can be well again, know that it is not the sickness, the physical weakness and pain that make the problem and the tragedy. It is the reconciling of the will to surrender life's hopes and the readjustment of the life to the conditions that have got to be, that nothing can change. That was Helen Trounstine's problem and her tragedy. She sat down with her fate and fought that fight and won it. It must have meant many hours of untold darkness and suffering and bitter questioning and struggle. But of such hours she gave us no outward sign. At least I saw none in the years I knew her, except that finest one of all, the victory of her soul in the glad and joyous doing of what remained within her power.