Against the Current: Simple Chapters from a Complex Life

_To President John Hanson Thomas Main, the embodiment of the ideals of Grinnell College who, although of different race and lineage is to me a friend and brother; I dedicate thi...

I did not then appreciate his piety or the splendid tenor voice in which he recited the prayers, or the many virtues which now I know he possessed. At that period I knew him onl...

From the depths of the vehicle the driver drew a brass-bound trunk. It was a strange-looking, gorgeous affair, and made almost as great a sensation among the astonished onlooker...

Just one woman held her baby close to her breast and shamefacedly nourished it in the darkest corner she could find. She was the mother of her child. The other women, most of th...

Of the comforts and luxuries by which the American child seems to be surfeited, I knew few or none. Sweets I tasted only in the form of Sabbath cake, an occasional piece of loaf...

To run races or to play ball were unknown pleasures, especially to the sedate Jewish lads. To play Indian, plan semi-serious hold-ups, to go about with bows and arrows and a sel...

"'The Assyrians came first, because they are the most ancient; and the Lord asked the Assyrians, What have you done to receive this reward of leading the nations of the earth, t...

When she recognized my mother she fell weeping upon her neck; mother wept too, although not knowing why and I began to whimper and cry in sympathy. The Gentile bar maid took an...

Good-bye, my father, whom my eyes never saw and my fingers never touched. I could not weep at your grave. How can we miss what we never had? Now, with children of my own, I unde...

In the afternoon, mother and I went visiting, usually among the poor and sick, and one of the heritages of those visits is a deep sympathy with human suffering. As I grew older,...

Out of all the many confusing interpretations of Christ's teachings, this is clear to me: That He meant to bring together the alienated, to harmonize the discordant, to heal the...

Into my sphere of relationship no rebuff nor insult can enter; because I ask nothing for myself; while for the other man, whether he be Jew or Gentile, I ask only that he shall...