 It presents Rosalind Russell, Dan O'Hurley and Raymond Burr. From Hollywood, the mutual network in cooperation with Family Theatre presents Hound of Heaven starring Dan O'Hurley and Raymond Burr. And now, here is your hostess, Rosalind Russell. Family Theatre's only purpose is to bring to everyone's attention a practice that must become an important part of our lives. If we are to win peace for ourselves, peace for our families and peace for the world. Family Theatre urges you to pray. Pray together as a family. And now, our transcribed drama, Hound of Heaven, starring Dan O'Hurley as Francis Thompson and Raymond Burr as the narrator. I fled him. I fled him down the nights. Yes, you fled him. You eluded him. I fled him down the nights and down the days. Yes, you twisted, turned, tried to escape. From those strong feet that followed, followed after. But did you ever really escape him? His name was Francis Thompson. And of all the lonely and obscure men who lived in London that year of 1887, none had made his bed in hell more surely than he. For him, each night was a lying down in hunger and fear. Each morning, a slow awakening to pain. Here, you there, get up. Come on, come on, get up, I say. Yes. You can't sleep here. You know that. I know. I'm sorry, officer. Come on, get along with you. Get along with you. For Francis Thompson, waking upon the Thames embankment, each morning was a slow return to pain. A remembrance of dreams made hideous by fear, twisted by hunger. Dreams of delirium shot through with dying stars and the river's mist. Dreams that always had their ending somewhere at the broken edge of the world with the night stick prodding his chest. The agony of waking to another day. And then, as he would get to his feet, brushing the dirt and matted leaves from his coat, pulling it tight about him against the fog, London too, it seemed, returned to life with the first cab in the street clop-topping by. The first mackerel peddler crying his wares with the first farmer's cart piled high with Surrey hay and the whistling of the Edinburgh Express coming down from the northern hills. As he awoke, London woke with him and they faced each other at the beginning of the day, the man of bone and flesh against the city of stone, the man with a tired heart driving his broken knuckles against the stone which never yielded. Each day began as another, a hay penny for a mug of tea, tuppence for a stale loaf of bread, a furtive search for an old rag, a wadded newspaper to line his shoes, and then the long tramp in search for work. Pardon, sir, would that be a place for me somewhere? Sorry, no work today. Would you be needing a man? Sorry, we have all the help we need. Unemployment, Francis. Unemployment. It's the scourge that can lash a man's spirit. It's a cross, a contradiction of economics that hangs heavily upon the shoulders of people like you, Francis. So you've got to keep walking, keep searching. Maybe somewhere you will find work. You can't stop to rest. Now, a turn down this street. Now there. Sorry, no work for you. Try the greengrocer across the street. Sorry, no work for you. Perhaps the wine shop. Try that. I'm sorry, no work for you. The warehouse. The warehouse. Sorry, no work for you. Sorry, no work for you. Yes, Francis, the day is over. The long tramping from door to door. Huddle there in the darkened doorway and take your rest. There will be no bread for your hunger tonight. No roof above your head. And there will be no drug to soothe the madness in your throat and brain. Lie in the doorway and take your rest. For tomorrow's another day. And if you live, there'll be more miles to walk. Death comes slowly to the afflicted. So you cannot hope for much tonight. What was that? A drum, perhaps. It could be the failing beat of your heart. No, it's not that. I hear it often. It stops and begins again. Your imagination? No, it sounds like footsteps. Though someone were following me. Try to rest. No matter where I go, I hear them. They follow me always. It's the drug, Francis. Try to get through this night and you're craving for it. Perhaps tomorrow you'll find work. It's not the drug, are my imagination. They are footsteps and they follow me wherever I go. I'm like a man with the hounds crying after him a hunter thing in a swamp and I hear these footsteps night and day I hear them. There, there, hear them. You hear a drum. You hear your heartbeat. It's footsteps all right. Someone approaching the doorway. Hello there. You there, are you all right? Oh, all right. Why, Lottie, you shouldn't be lying here in the doorway. You'll cut your death a cold. Oh, all right, I say. Oh, yeah. I tell you, Lottie, this is a bad night for a man's body and soul. What right have you to talk about bodies and souls? Oh, for the right of one human being to another, Lottie. Look, my friend, you mean well and for that I thank you, but I'm sick. I'm tired. I'm hungry. I know you're sick. I know you're alone. That's why I'd like to help you. Oh, what do you mean? Help. I want you to come home with me. My name's McMasters. I'm a cobbler by trade and I can put you to work if you want to, John. Work? You'll owe me nothing like nothing at all. Why should you do this for me? Why shouldn't I, uh, if the situation were reversed, it's you who'd be reaching out your hand to me. This way it's my good fortune. Here, come along now, lads. A warm bed for you tonight and a good day's work in the morning. Hello, Francis. How goes the work? Not so well, Mr. McMasters. I'm afraid I don't think I was cut out for a cobbler. Oh, you're just learning, lad. It's only three weeks you've been here. Tell me, laddie, I didn't want to pry or anything, but what's your trade or profession? I have none. If I did, I suppose you'd call it journalism. Oh, you're right then. Yes, Mr. McMasters. What do you write, Francis? The usual thing I suppose is refuse, essay some poetry. The sort of things that never sell. Here, lad, try some of this tobacco. It's an Irish mixture. Thanks. Light? Where'd you go to school, Francis? Who's shot? It's about four miles from Durham. And you were studying... I wanted to enter the priesthood. I failed. Oh, I'm sorry. Strange when you come to think of it. I'm 28, you know. You think that in 28 years a man will be able to win? Well, to win one victory. You think that, but it isn't true. After I was rejected for the priesthood, my father sent me to Manchester to study medicine. Six years, examinations every two years, I failed all of them. The feat for me was like a web. I seemed to be caught into it, woven into its pattern. And after a while I became afraid to try anything at all for fear I'd fail at it. That's why I came to London. Did you break the pattern? No, to lose myself, to crawl into the darkest corner of the city and hide. Gladly, laddy. And how long have you? Two years, come November. Two years on the streets and doorways? How could you live? How? I don't know. Maybe it was because I prayed. I'd say that only. Sometimes there was even no belief in my prayers. I felt as if I were not being heard. You see, living the way I did in hunger, a disordered nervous condition, loneliness, you can't think clearly sometimes, you don't your own mind's power to think, and then you can't pray right. I mean, I went on praying and... I'm still alive, that's all I know. And God willing you'll stay alive, Francis, where you have a roof over your head now and a job. And maybe time to write. Maybe time to write something great and good. Would be a pleasant thing to be able to say that Francis Thompson settled down to an ordered life and turned out a great work of literature, that he rewarded his benefactor in some generous way. But the truth is quite different. Thompson was useless around the cobbler shop. Oh, he was willing, but he was clumsy and inefficient. He scribbled verses when he should have been working, and his few earnings were spent to satisfy the craving for opium, which constantly tortured him. He spent three months with McMasters, and then one day he disappeared. McMasters waited for him to return that night. He waited many nights as the autumn months passed into winter, but Francis Thompson never came back. Of the many McMasters had befriended and given jobs. Thompson alone proved a disappointment. He was my only failure, McMasters wrote. He was my only failure. Here, you! Where do you think you're going? Stay away from that church. I wasn't going in. I'm drunk and dirty, and I'm going to crawl into that church where it's warm, eh? Thought no one would see you. Go on, get on your way. The church? Yes. Get along, I said. That's where I can go. Oh, yeah, you. You come along with me. I'll take you to the place where you're going. Come on back. Have mercy upon me. Have mercy upon me. Christ, have mercy upon me. Christ, have mercy upon me. Lord, have mercy upon you, Francis Thompson. Mercy. Upon your weakness and failures. Mercy. And through you on all the poor and broken who walk in the city streets. Help us all, oh God. From the city itself. From the cruelty of stone and the horror of the pavement. Defend me, oh God. From the arms house and prison. From the makeshift bed in the doorway. Defend me, oh God. From the hunger and the day and wakefulness at night. From the torn coat and the broken shoes. From the stairs of pity. From the stairs of contempt. Deliver me, oh God. From the man whose hand is against us. From his anger in his cleansed fist. From the sudden blow against the mouth. Deliver me, oh God. And give us this day our daily bread. Give me this day my daily bread. But more than bread alone, oh God. Give us the strength to earn our bread. Hear me, oh God. Christ, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on me. Time to go, Francis. The church is empty. The sexton is putting out the candles one by one. I can't go. If I leave, I'd forget how to pray. You must. Where? Somewhere. A doorway, perhaps. There's that grain warehouse and cock lane. If you could force a window. No, the rats. There's always the embankment. It's snowing. Then what? I don't know. Perhaps this is the end of all my running. Death? Death comes slowly to the afflicted. Well, not to me. A loaf of bread, a mother of coffee and three. Is it four days? The dizzy spells, fever, cough? No, no. I can't be far off now, even to me. Do you want to die? Do I want to live this way? Do you not know, Francis, that while you live, your body is the temple of God? God doesn't live in me. God is perfection and health and beauty. Can God live in a broken body and a mind that doubts its own reason? No. I lost God some time after I left the Kabbalah shop. I lost him somewhere in the alleys of East Cheep. But has God lost you, Francis? Huh? Has he lost you? If I deny him, how can he find me? Listen. Do you hear that? The footsteps? The footsteps of the hound. Do you remember, Francis? Footsteps? Yes. Yes. They always follow me. But there's something inside me. Oh God, forgive me some fear, some dread that keeps me running from those footsteps. What's wrong? What you running for? It's nothing. Somebody help me. Help me, please. What happened? You've been quite sick. Don't you remember? How long have I been... Three days. Don't you remember? You were running along the street. Oh, yes. Yes, I remember now. And you were the girl... I brought your ear to this boarding ass. I'm afraid I've put you to a lot of trouble. I think I'd better go. Oh, but you can't. You're sick. The doctor said you got to rest and eat. He says you was done from starvation. You called a doctor? I do. Well, that cost money. I've got nothing. I don't say it. What's your name? Anne. Who are you? I mean, what sort of work do you do? Nothing very much. Nothing important. I didn't mean to pry. I just wondered. Anne. Yes? Maybe you haven't done anything important, as you say. I don't know who you are, what you are, but... I've been wandering across a plain of fever and delirium. Three days, you tell me. Dreams came up like clouds over those three days. But in the end, it seemed that I heard footsteps behind me. And I ran and ran. And far on the edge of a plain, I saw a cross standing. And I thought if I can reach that cross, I'd be safe. So I ran toward it. Only when I got there, it wasn't a cross. It was you. Do you understand? You mean, you don't care what I am? No. No, I only wonder what I can ever do for you in return. And so, once again, through the kindness of a stranger, this time an outcast much like himself, the healing of Francis Thompson began. To him, this girl gave of the little she had, food, clothing, encouragement, but more than that, an ease from loneliness. To her, he gave things unknown in her life, tenderness and reverence and respect. And then at last, Francis Thompson began to write. The Passion of Mary, a poem. Paganism, Old and New, an essay. Two things finished, actually finished. It's hard to believe that I have the power, the sheer mental power to work them through. Francis Thompson's work was good, and Wilfred Menel, editor of the magazine Mary England, published the pieces, sought out the author, and extended to him the hand which would lift him from obscurity. But Francis Thompson, about to reach for the hand, suddenly withdrew himself. For what about Anne? And I sold him to Mr. Menel. And Anne's interested in me. He wants me to come and live with him to do my work at his home. I mean, he wants us. Us? Yes. You see, I told him we were to be married, and that I'd come only if you were with me. Oh, no. I want you to marry me and... I'm not worthy of you, Francis. You know that. You're great and good. I might only hurt you. I might keep you from... It's been good what we had together, Francis. But you'll have to go on alone now. You'll have to go on alone. So the girl who had lifted him from the streets vanished from his life. All that day he searched for her, all the next and the next, but she had disappeared. He turned away from the extended hand of Menel in his search for her, and the days passed into weeks, weeks into a month. Then two months as he tramped the mighty labyrinth of London. But he never found her. Among the millions of faces he looked into, none was hers. And then at last, one day, sitting on a bench in Covent Garden, barren from the grief that drained him, he heard the familiar sound of footsteps. Francis? Yes? She's gone. You'll never find her again. I know. And now there's nothing left. Nothing but the footsteps. You hear them? I hear them. Think back, Francis, think back. Isn't it strange how each time you've cried, each time the horror of life has risen up to crush you, you've heard the footsteps? Yes. Each time I've lost the sense of God, I've heard them. Only in those times, I begin to hear them faintly, when my faith grew weaker, when my prayers, and then at last when I had lost the sense of God, they beat like thunder in my ears. As they are beating now? Yes. And as they beat the night I came to you? Yes. And the Night McMaster's found? Yes. Yes. What are you driving at? Don't you know? Think, Francis. Think. Is it possible you could touch God by the hand and not know it? The footsteps of God in Charing Cross, no matter where I fled, they followed down the nights and days. The twisted lanes and passageways of all London, down the years and months and days they followed. God's love pressing in on me when I denied him. God's love hounding me through the swamps of despair. God who wouldn't let me go even though I had denied him. God looking at me out of her eyes and touching me with her hands. Yes, I know now. I know these footsteps. Then search out your soul, Francis, and put what you find into words. All the hunger and pain and loneliness of these tortured years, write it, Francis. I fled him down the nights and down the days. I fled him down the arches of the years. I fled him down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind, and in the mist of tears I hid from him. Write it for all to read, Francis, for the poor, the beaten, the hungry, the tempted, the weak, for those like you all over the world. I hid from him, from those strong feet that followed, followed after, but with unhurrying chase and unperturbed pace, deliberate speed, majestic instancy. They beat and a voice beat more instant than the feet. All things betray thee who betray us me. Put into words the streets in the sleepless nights, the cold sweats and the agony of thought. Put McMasters into them, and, and, and put the losing of God into words, the awful loneliness. For though I knew his love who followed, yet was I sore a dread, best having him I might have not beside. And Francis, put into words the joy that came when God had found you once again. And pass those noise at feet, a voice comes yet more fleeting. Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am he whom thou seekest. Put all this into words that others may draw courage from them and find their way to peace. For it is you, Francis Thompson, who went down to make a bed in hell, and found God's love following you. Even there, I am he whom thou seekest. And so, Francis Thompson, who today ranks among the great poets, went on to build a new life for himself, aided by the kindness of the mental family, went on to complete the Hound of Heaven, and give the world one of the most inspiring poems of all literature. The story of God's love and mercy. Thank you, Tony Lofrano. This is Rosalind Russell again. Christmas is a wonderful season of the year, and it has a wonderful flavor for all of us. The decorations still lie in our city streets, and each house still has its Christmas tree with tinsel and lights and ornaments. The children are playing with new Christmas toys while fathers probably are trying to remember how long the tree stayed up last year and how in the world he ever got rid of it when the time came. Chances are mothers trying to think up a different way of serving the remains of the turkey, perhaps cream turkey on toast or hash or maybe turkey soup. But through all this, the Christmas spirit still prevails. Though the day itself is over, there's still that feeling of warmth and peace, which is a regular part, an ever-present part of the celebration of the feast of Christmas. I say feast of Christmas because Christmas is a feast day, although sometimes the real meaning seems to be lost under Santa Claus and reindeer, snow scenes, holiday candy and the exchange of gifts. It is never the less important for the only one real reason. Christmas is the birth day of the Son of God. It marks the day when God the Father ended the centuries of waiting by sending the promised Messiah in the person of his only Son. When he sent Jesus to be born in Bethlehem and live among us that we might have eternal life. Now, the holiday is over for the year and the gifts have all been given and accepted. The people of the post office department are giving themselves a well-deserved pat on the back for having handled the volumes of packages efficiently and they're getting ready now to handle the thank you notes. Millions of people will be writing to acknowledge gratitude for gifts received. But what about the first gift of Christmas? The gift of the Father when he sent his only Son to us. In this instance, Family Theater recommends family prayer as a means of expressing our gratitude and as a means of keeping the Christmas spirit in the family all year long. Daily family prayer. A family gathering together for a few minutes each day to express gratitude. To thank God for his many blessings can keep love in the home and love is the essence of the Christmas spirit. Then too, the family that prays together stays together. More things are wrought by prayer and this world dreams of. From Hollywood, Family Theater has brought you transcribed Town of Heaven starring Dan O'Hurley and Raymond Burr. Rosalind Russell was your hostess. Others in our cast were Jean Bates, Ben Wright and Richard Peele. The script was written for Family Theater by Frederick Lytton and was directed by John T. Kelly with music composed and conducted by Harry Zimmerman. This series of Family Theater broadcasts is made possible by the thousands of you who feel the need for this type of program, by the mutual network which has responded to this need and by hundreds of stars of stage, screen and radio who give so unselfishly of their time and talent to appear on our Family Theater stage. To them and to you, our humble thanks. This is George Crowell expressing the wish of Family Theater that the blessing of God may be upon you and your home and inviting you to be with us next week when Family Theater will present Survival Mechanism starring Cameron Mitchell. Gigi Perot will be your hostess. Join us, won't you? Family Theater is broadcast throughout the world and originates in the Hollywood studios of the world's largest network. This is Mutual, the radio network for all America.