Circle 6-6483

The Rev. James Jefferson Davis Hall was 75 and sick in bed the day the phone rang. Moreover, it was a wrong number and the voice at the other end apologized. But something moved Hall to speak. "Hold on," he said, "you've got the right number. Are you a Christian?"

For a minute or two he talked to his surprised caller about Christian living. It was Hall's turn to be surprised when the phone rang again later and another strange voice said: "I was told to call this number and I would receive a message I need."

After that day in 1939, James Jefferson Davis Hall, Alabama-born Episcopalian who moved to Manhattan in 1924, spent most of his time answering calls to his number, Circle 6-6483. It was an unorthodox mission, but the spry, bearded old pastor had never let custom stand in his way. For nine years, from 1928 to 1937, he had preached to noon-hour crowds in the downtown financial district, become known as "The Bishop of Wall Street." Now he became "Dad" Hall, the telephone preacher, and as word of his number spread, he got dozens of calls a day. Each caller heard a plainspoken talk on Christian verities.

Occasionally, a practical joker gave the number to an unsuspecting friend. It made no difference to Dad Hall, or to the volunteer assistants who came to help him. Even the drunks listened. "A bar is a bar to heaven and a gate to hell," Hall would tell them, "and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise." Homeless down & outers came to his mission for help; a light burned in the window all night. And the telephone kept ringing.

"Most people calling here," Hall said in his Alabama drawl, "got a bad conscience, a family trouble, or are just plain lonely. Men running away from their wives, crooks, gamblers. The most distinguished and the most vile. When they ask what's my message for this morning, I know they're repeaters and I feel like the president of a sunshine factory. I wear hand-me-downs, and eat of the spirit, and I'm so happy I don't want to go to bed nights." One night last week, after a five-week illness, the Rev. James Jefferson Davis Hall, 86, went to sleep for the last time. He had told friends the epitaph he wanted on his headstone: "I preached not what they wanted but what they needed, and I found it easy to be a Christian." His text will be followed exactly. Meanwhile, the phone at Circle 6-6483 is still ringing, and Dad Hall's assistants are there to answer it.

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