JOHN WESLEY, JR.
The Story of an Experiment
BY
DAN B. BRUMMITT
1921
TO
THOMAS KANE, "LAYMAN,"
WHOSE LONG LIFE OF NOBLE SERVICE
IS BEARING FRUIT IN A NEW CHRISTIAN
CONSCIENCE TOWARDS THE SUPPORT OF
THE WORK OF CHRIST'S KINGDOM IN
ALL THE WORLD
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE
EDUCATIONAL, MISSIONARY
AND BENEVOLENT
WORK OF THE CHURCH
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
THE GENESIS OF THE EXPERIMENT
I. AN INSTITUTE PANORAMA
II. JOHN WESLEY, JR.'S BRINGING UP
III. CAMPUS DAYS
IV. EXPLORING MAIN STREET
V. HERE THE ALIEN; THERE THE LITTLE BROWN CHURCH
VI. "IS HE NOT A MAN AND A BROTHER?"
VII. THE FIRST AMERICAN CIVILIZATION
VIII. CHRIST AND THE EAST
THIS EXPERIMENT TEACHETH--?
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE CARTWRIGHT INSTITUTE
THE WESLEY FOUNDATION SOCIAL CENTER
(This one is at Illinois University)
MAIN STREET
THE TENEMENTS OF MANY DELAFIELDS
ONE OF THE HIGH LIGHTS OF MAIN STREET
ONE OF THE CANNERY COLONY
THERE'S HOPE FOR THE NEGRO IN A SCHOOL LIKE THIS
THE MEXICAN'S HOME IN THE SOUTHWEST
THE MEXICAN'S CHURCH IN THE SOUTHWEST
DR. JOE CARBROOK DOES SUCH WORK AS THIS IN CHINA
THE GENESIS OF THE EXPERIMENT
After years of waiting for time and place and person,
the Rev. Walter Drury, an average Methodist
preacher, was ready to begin his Experiment.
The process of getting adjusted to its conditions was ended. He believed
that, if he had health and nothing happened to his mind, he might count
on at least eight years more at First Church, Delafield--a ten-year
pastorate is nothing wonderful in to-day's Methodism. The right preacher
makes his own time limit.
He would not think himself too good for Delafield, but neither did he
rate himself too low. He just felt that he was reasonably secure against
promotion, and that he need not be afraid of "demotion." There are such
men. They are a boon to bishops.
The unforeseen was to be reckoned with, of course, the possible
shattering of all his plans by some unimagined misfortune. But the man
who waits until he is secure against the unknown never discovers
anything, not even himself.
Walter Drury had at last found his man, or, rather, his boy, here in
Delafield. It was necessary to the Experiment that its subject should be
a decent young fellow, not particularly keen on formal religion, but
well set-up in body and mind; clean, straight, and able to use the
brains he had when need arose.
John Wesley, Jr., was such a boy.
Would the result be worth what he was putting into the venture? That
would depend on one's standards. The church doesn't doubt that the more
than twice ten years' experiment of Helms in the south end of Boston has
been worth the price. And Helms has for company a few pioneers in other
fields who will tell you they have drawn good pay, in the outcomes of
their patience.
Still, Walter Drury was a new sort of specialist. The thing he had in
mind to do had been almost tried a thousand times; a thousand times it
had been begun. But so far as he knew no one preacher had thought to
focus every possible influence on a single life through a full cycle of
change. He meant his work to be intensive: not in degree only, but in
duration.
At the end of ten years! If, then, he had not shown, in results beyond
question, the direction of the church's next great advance, at least he
would have had the measureless joy of the effort. No seeming failure
could rob him of his reward.
Now, do not image this preacher as a dreaming scattergood; he would do
as much as any man should, that is to say, his utmost, in his pulpit and
his parish. The Experiment should be no robbing of collective Peter to
pay individual Paul.
But every man has his avocation, his recreation, you know--golf, roses,
coins, first editions, travel. Walter Drury, being a confirmed bachelor,
missed both the joys and the demands of home life. No recluse, but,
rather, a companionable man, he cared little for what most people call
amusement, but he cared tremendously for the human scene in which he
lived and worked. He would be happy in the Experiment for its sheer
human fascinations. That it held a deeper interest, that if it succeeded
it would reveal an untapped reservoir of resources available for the
church and the kingdom of God, did but make him the more eager to be at
it in hard earnest.
The church to whose work he had joyfully given himself from his youth
had grown to be a mighty and a highly complex machine. Some thought it
was more machinery than life, more organization than organism. But
Walter Drury knew better. It _was_ a wonderful machine, wheels within
wheels, but there was within the wheels the living spirit of the
prophet's vision.
Partly because the church was so vast and its work of such infinite
variety, very few of its members knew what it did, or how, or why. It
was all over the land, and in the ends of the earth, for people joined
it; and they lived their lives in the cheerful and congenial circle of
its fellowship. But the planetary sweep of its program and its
enterprises was to most of them not even as a tale that is told. They
were content to be busy with their own affairs, and had small curiosity
to know what meanings and mysteries might be discovered out in places
they had never explored, even though just 'round the corner from the
week-by-week activities of the familiar home congregation.
Walter Drury, at the end of one reasonably successful pastorate, had
stood bewildered and baffled as he looked back over his five years of
effort against this persistent and amiable passivity. It was not a
deliberate sin, or he might have denounced it; nor a temporary numbness,
or he might have waited for it to disappear. All the more it dismayed
him.
At the beginning of his ministry he had set this goal before him, that
every soul under his care might see as he saw, and see with him more
clearly year by year, the church's great work; its true and total
business. He had not failed, as the Annual Conference reckons failure.
But he knew he had been less than successful. The people of his
successive appointments were receptive people as church folk go. Then
who was to blame, that sermons and books and Advocates and pictures and
high officials and frequent great assemblies, always accomplishing
something, always left behind them the untouched, unmoved majority of
the people called Methodists?
It was all this and more of the same sort, which at last took shape in
Drury's thought and fixed the manner and matter of the Experiment. This
boy he had found, with a name that might be either prophecy or mockery,
he would study like a book. He would brood over his life. Mind you, he
would take no advantage, use no influence unfairly. He would neither
dictate nor drive. He would not trespass even so far as to the outer
edges of the boy's free personality. For the most part he would stay in
the background. But he would watch the boy, as for lesser outcomes
Darwin watched the creatures of wood and field. Without revealing all
his purpose he would set before this boy good and evil; the lesser good
and the greater. He would use for high and holy ends the method which
the tempter never tires of using for confusion. He would show this boy
the kingdoms of the children of God, and the glories of them, and would
promise them to him, not for a moment's shame but for a life's devotion.
As to the particular form in which the result of the Experiment might
appear he cared little. He had a certain curiosity on the subject
naturally, but he knew well enough that the Experiment would be useless
if he laid interfering hands on its inner processes. That would be like
trimming a whitethorn tree in a formal garden, to make it resemble a
pyramid. He was not making a thorn pyramid in an Italian garden; he
wanted an oak, to grow by the common road of all men's life. And oaks
must grow oak-fashion, or not at all.
* * * * *
Four years of the ten had passed. That part of the history of John
Wesley, Jr., which is told in the following pages, is the story of the
other six years.
CHAPTER I
AN INSTITUTE PANORAMA
"If anybody expects me to stay away from Institute this year, he has got
a surprise coming, that's all."
The meeting was just breaking up, after a speech whose closing words had
been a shade less tactful than the occasion called for. But the last two
sentences of that speech made all the difference in the world to John
Wesley, Jr.
The Epworth League of First Church, Delafield, was giving one of its
fairly frequent socials. The program had gone at top speed for more than
an hour. All that noise could do, re-enforced by that peculiar emanation
by youth termed "pep," had been drawn upon to glorify a certain
forthcoming event with whose name everybody seemed to be familiar, for
all called it simply "the Institute."
Pennants, posters, and photographs supplied a sort of pictorial noise,
the better to advertise this evidently remarkable event, which, one
might gather, was a yearly affair held during the summer vacation at the
seat of Cartwright College.
The yells and songs, the cheers and games and reminiscences, re-enforced
the noisy decorations. At the last, in one of those intense moments of
quiet which young people can produce as by magic, came a neat little
speech whose purpose was highly praiseworthy. But, to John Wesley, Jr.,
it ended on the wrong note. Another listener took mental exception to
it, though his anxiety proved to be groundless.
It was a recruiting speech, directed at anybody and everybody who had
not yet decided to attend the Institute.
The speaker was, if anything, a trifle more cautious than canny when he
came to his "in conclusion," and his zeal touched the words with
anti-climax.
"Of course," he said, "since ten, or at most twelve, is our quota, we
are not quite free to encourage the attendance of everybody,
particularly of our younger members. They have hardly reached the age
where the Institute could be a benefit to them, and their natural
inclination to make the week a period of good times and mere pleasure
would seriously interfere with the interests of others more mature and
serious minded."
Now, the pastor of the church, the Rev. Walter Drury, would have put
that differently, he said to himself. If it produced any bad effects it
would need to be corrected, certainly.
Just then, amid the inevitable applause, and the dismissal of the brief
formal assembly for the social half-hour, something snapped inside of
John Wesley, Jr., and it was the feeling of it which prompted him to
say, "If anybody expects me to stay away from Institute this year, he
has got a surprise coming, that's all."
You see, John Wesley, Jr., had just been graduated from high school,
and his family expected him to go to college in the fall, though he
faced that expectation without much enthusiasm. He felt his new freedom.
He addressed his rebellious remark to the League president, Marcia
Dayne, a sensible girl whom he had known as long as he had known anybody
in the church.
"Last year everybody said I was too young. They all talked the way he
did just now. But they can't say I am too young now," and with that easy
skill which is one of the secrets of youth, he managed to contemplate
himself, serenely conscious that he was personable and "right."
The girl turned to him with a gesture of surprise.
"But I thought your father had agreed to let you take that trip to
Chicago you have been saving up for. Will he let you go to the Institute
too?"
"Chicago can wait," said John Wesley, Jr., grandly. "Dad did say I could
go to Chicago to see my cousins, or I could go anywhere else that I
wanted. Well, I am going to the Institute. It's my money, and, besides,
I am tired of being told I am too young. A fellow's got to grow up some
time."
"That's all right," said Marcia, "but what's your special interest in
the Institute? Do you truly want to go? How do you know what an
Institute is like?"
Her voice carried further than Marcia thought, and a man who seemed a
little too mature to be one of the young people, turned toward her. He
was smiling, and any time these four years the town would have told you
there wasn't a friendlier smile inside the city limits. He was in
business dress, and suggested anything but the parson in his bearing,
but through and through he looked the good minister that he was.
Marcia moved toward him with an unspoken appeal. She wanted help. He was
waiting for that signal, for he depended a good deal on Marcia. And he
was still worried about that unlucky speech.
"Well, Marcia, are you telling J.W. what the Institute really is?" he
asked.
"No, Mr. Drury, I'm not. I'm too much surprised at finding that he's
about decided to go. You're just in time to tell him for me. I want him
to get it right, and straight."
"Well," the pastor responded, "I'm glad of that. If he's really going,
he'll find out that definitions are not descriptions. Now, our Saint
Sheridan used to say that an Institute was a combination of college,
circus, and camp meeting. I would venture a different putting of it. An
Institute is a bit of young democracy in action. Its people play
together, for play's sake and for finding their honest human level. They
study together, to become decently intelligent about some of the real
business of the kingdom of God, and how the church proposes to transact
that business. They wait for new vision together, the Institute being a
good time and a good place for seeing life clear and seeing it whole."
"Yes," said Marcia, "that's exactly it, only I never could have found
quite the right words. Do you think J.W. will find it too poky and
preachy?"
"Tell him to try it and see, as you did last year," said Pastor Drury.
"I'll risk that," said John Wesley, Jr., in his newly resolute mood.
He knew when to stop, this preacher. Particularly concerned as he was
about John Wesley, Jr., he saw that this was one of the many times when
that young man would need to work things out for himself. Marcia would
give what help might be called for at the moment. The boy was turning
toward the Institute; so far so good.
To-night was nearly four years from the beginning of his interest in
this young fellow with the Methodist name. He was a special friend of
the family, though no more so than of every family in the town which
gave him the slightest encouragement. To a degree which no one suspected
he shared this family's secret hopes for its son and heir; and he
cherished hopes which even the Farwells could not suspect. Unless he was
much mistaken he had found the subject for his Experiment.
That mention of the Farwells needs to be explained. Of course "John
Wesley, Jr.," was only part of the boy's name. In full he was John
Wesley Farwell, Jr., son of John Wesley Farwell, Sr., of the J.W.
Farwell Hardware Co. As a little fellow he had no chance to escape
"Junior," since he was named for his father. There were many Jacks and
Johns and Johnnies about. His mother, good Methodist that she was,
secretly enjoyed calling him "John Wesley, Jr.," and before long the
neighbors and the neighborhood children followed her example.
A little later he might have been teased out of it, but at the
impossible age when boys discover that queer names and red hair and
cross-eyes make convenient excuses for mutual torture, it happened that
he had attained to the leadership of his gang. For some reason he took
pride in his two Methodist names, and made short work of those who
ventured to take liberties with them. In all other respects he played
without reserve boyhood's immemorial game of give and take; but as to
his name or any part thereof he would tolerate no foolishness and no
back talk. When he reached the high school period, however, most of his
intimates rarely called him by his full name, having, like all high
school people, no time for long names, though possessed of infinite
leisure for long dreams. Straightway they shortened his name to "J.W.,"
which to this day is all that his friends find necessary.
Very well, then; this is J.W. at eighteen; a young fellow worth
knowing. Take a look at him; impulsive, generous, not what you would
call handsome, but possessed of a genial eye and a ready tongue, a
stubby nose and a few scattered freckles. A fair student, he is yet far
from bookishness, and he makes friends easily.
Of late he has been paying furtive but detailed attention to his hair
and his neckties and the hang of his clothes, though still in small
danger of being mistaken for a tailor's model.
With such a name you will understand that he's a Methodist by first
intention; born so. He is a pretty sturdy young Christian, showing it in
a boy's modest but direct fashion, which even his teammates of the
high-school football squad found it no trouble to tolerate, because they
knew him for a human, healthy boy, and not a morbid, self-inspecting
religious prig. Pastor Drury, you may be sure, had taken note of all
that, for he and J.W. had been fast friends since the day he had
received the boy into the church.
The morning after the Institute social J.W. announced at breakfast his
sudden change of plan.
"If you don't mind, Dad, I've about decided to go to the Institute
instead of Chicago. There is a bunch of us going, and Mr. Drury will be
there. Uncle Henry's folks might not want to be bothered with me now,
and anyway I don't know them very well. But I can go to the Institute
with the church crowd; and there will be tennis and swimming and plenty
of other fun besides the big program." Which was quite a speech for J.
W.
John Wesley, Sr., didn't know much about the Institute, but he had an
endless regard for his pastor, and the mother was characteristically
willing to postpone her boy's introduction to the unknown and, in her
thought, therefore, the menacing city.
So, after the brief but unhurried devotions at the breakfast table,
which had come to serve in place of the old-time family prayers,
parental approval was forthcoming. And thus it befell that J.W.
selected for himself a future whose every experience was to be affected
by so slight a matter as his impulsive choice of a week's holiday. That
choice expressed to him the new freedom of his years, for he had not
even been conscious of the quiet influence which had made it easier than
he knew to decide as he had done.
* * * * *
It was a mixed and lively company that found itself crowded around the
registrar's table at the Institute one Monday evening in July, with J.
W. and his own particular chum, Martin Luther Shenk, better known as
"Marty," right in the middle of it.
J.W. wondered where so many Epworthians could have come from. Did they
really hanker after the Institute, or had they come for reasons as
trivial as his own? He put the question to Martin Luther Shenk.
"Marty, do you reckon these are all here for real Epworth League work,
or does the Institute want anybody and everybody?"
Marty had been scouting a little, and he answered: "No, to both
questions, I should say. Some have come just to be coming, and others
seem to be here for business. But I saw Joe Carbrook just now, and if he
is an Epworth Leaguer I am the Prince of Puget Sound. You know how he
stands at home. Wonder what he came for."
Just then Joe Carbrook himself came up. He was from Delafield too,
member of the same League chapter as the two chums, but he had rarely
condescended to league affairs. Having had two rather variegated years
at college, he felt he must show his sophistication by holding himself
above some of those simple old observances.
"S'pose you are here for solemn and serious work, you two," he remarked
mockingly, as he saw the boys. "I just met Marcia Dayne, and she told me
you were registering. Well, I'm here too--drove up in my car--but you
don't catch me tying myself down to all that study stuff. I'm looking
for fun, not work."
"Nothing new for you in that, Joe," said Marty. "But I should think you
might try the study stuff, if only for a change, after you have spent
good money on gas and tires. And you have to pay for your meals, you
know."
"Well, I studied hard enough last month in college cramming for the
final exams, so I could get within gunshot of enough sophomore credits,
and I'm through; with study for a while. If I find a few live ones in
this crowd, I guess we can enjoy ourselves without interfering with any
of you grinds, if you must study," and Joe Carbrook went off in search
of his live ones.
J.W. and Marty were in no hurry to register. The crowd milling around
in the office was interesting, and J.W. was still wondering how many of
them, himself included, would get enough Institute long before the week
was over. Besides, it was yet an hour before supper.
"Think of it, Marty. All these people come from Epworth Leagues just
like ours, from Springfield, and Wolf Prairie and Madison and all over
this part of the State. What for, I'd like to know? Will you look at
those pennants? Wish we had brought one or two of ours; we could add to
the display, anyway."
"I have two in my suitcase," said Marty. "We'll have them out this
evening at the introduction meeting. And maybe you'll find out 'what
for' by that time."
The introduction meeting in the chapel after supper was for the most
part informal. Yells and songs and the waving of pennants punctuated the
proceedings, as is quite the proper thing in an Epworth League
gathering. Some people, who see only what is on the surface, cannot
wholly understand the exuberance of an Epworth League crowd. But it has
roots in something very real.
The dean of the Institute managed, amid the roystering and the intervals
of attention, to set things up for the week. A few regulations would
need to be laid down; and these would be fixed, not by the faculty or by
the dean, but by the Student Council. Would each district group please
get together at once, and select some one to represent the group on this
council?
This request being obeyed amid considerable confusion, with Marcia Dayne
appointed from the Fort Adams District, and the council excused to draft
the basic laws for the week, the faculty was introduced, one by one.
Each teacher was given the opportunity to describe his or her course, so
that out of the eight or nine courses offered every delegate might
select two besides the two which were required of all students, and so
qualify for an Institute diploma.
J.W. found himself enjoying all this hugely. It appealed to his growing
sense of freedom from schoolboy restraint. If he did go to any of the
classes, it appeared that he could pick the ones he liked. Up to now he
had entertained no thought of any serious work, but the faculty talks
about these courses made him think there might be worse ways of spending
the week than qualifying for an Institute diploma. The whole thing
seemed to be so easy and so friendly. Of course he could see that the
study would not be much, even if he signed up for it, being just for a
week, but it might not be bad fun.
Morning Watch was an experience to J.W. He was surprised to find
himself staying awake in a before-breakfast religious meeting, and was
even more surprised to be enjoying it. Something about this big crowd of
young people stirred all his pulses, and the religion they heard about
and talked about seemed to J.W. something very real and desirable. He
thought of himself as a Christian, but he wondered if his Christian life
might not become more confident and productive. In this atmosphere one
almost felt that anything was possible.
Meal times turned out to be times of orderly disorder. J.W. and his
friends were at a table with other groups from the Fort Adams District,
and he quickly mastered the raucous roar which served the District for a
yell. Before the end of the second day his alert good nature made him
cheer leader, and thereafter he rarely had time to eat all that was set
before him, though possessed of a boy's healthy appetite. It was simply
that the other possibilities of the hour seemed more alluring than mere
food.
From the first day of the class work J.W. found himself keen for all
that was going on. There was variety enough so that he felt no
weariness, and the range of new interests opened up each day kept him at
constant and pleasurable attention. Without knowing just how, he was
catching the Institute spirit.
He walked away from the dining hall one noon with his pastor-friend, and
he talked. He had to talk to somebody, and Walter Drury contrived to
know of his need.
"Why, Mr. Drury," he said, eagerly, "I'm just finding out how little I
know about the church and real Christian work. I thought I was something
of an average Methodist boy, but if the people at home are no better
than I am, I can see how being a preacher to such a bunch is a man's
job."
"Correct, J.W." said the minister. "I find that out many a time, to my
humbling. But honestly, now, are you learning things you never knew
before?"
"Ye-es, I am," J.W. answered, "and then, again, I'm not. It seems to me
as if I had always known a lot of what we are getting in these classes,
though there is plenty of new stuff too. But until now I didn't get much
out of what I knew. I've always liked to hear you, but you're different.
As for most of the things I've heard, I just thought of it as religious
talk, church stuff, you know. It didn't seem to matter, but here it is
beginning to matter in all sorts of ways, and I can see that it matters
to me."
"How, for instance?"
Well, take the class in home missions; Americanization, they call it.
Maybe you noticed that the first thing the teacher did was to divide the
class right down the middle, and tell those on the left hand--yes, I'm
one of the goats--that for the rest of the week they were to consider
themselves aliens. The others were to play native-born Americans. And so
the study started, but believe me, we aliens have already begun to make
it interesting for those natives. Some of 'em want to come over on our
side already, but they can't. A few of us have found some immigration
dope in the college library, and it is pretty strong. We'll show up
those Pilgrim Fathers before the week is out. They think they have done
everything an alien could ask when they let him into the country, and
then they work him twelve hours a day, seven days a week, or else let
him hunt the country over for any sort of a job. They rob him by making
him pay higher prices than other people for all he has to buy. They
force him to live in places not fit for rats, and on top of everything
else they call him names, so that their kids stick up their noses at his
children in the school grounds. After all that they expect he'll become
a good citizen just by hearing 'The Star-Spangled Banner' at the movies
and watching the flag go by when there's a parade.
"Say, Mr. Drury, it makes me sick, and, if I feel that way just to be
pretending I'm a 'Wop' for a week, how do you suppose the real aliens
feel? Excuse me for talking like this, but honestly, something like that
is going on in all these classes; I wish we could take up such things in
the League at home." And he forced an embarrassed little laugh.
Pastor Drury laughed too, and said of course they could, as he linked
arms with J.W., and they passed on down the road. The preacher talked
but little, contriving merely to drop a question now and then; and J.W.
talked on, half-ashamed to be so "gabby," as he put it, and yet moved by
an impulse as pleasant as it was novel.
"And foreign missions, Mr. Drury. You won't be offended, I hope, but
somehow as far back as I can remember I have always connected foreign
missions with collections and 'Greenland's Icy Mountains' and little
naked Hottentots, and something--I don't know just what--about the River
Ganges. But here--why, that China class just makes me want to see China
for myself and find out how much of the advantages of American life over
Chinese has come on account of religion."
"Well, why not, J.W.? Maybe you will go to China some day, and have a
hand in it all," suggested the pastor, to try him out.
The boy shook his head.
"No, I don't think so. I am certainly getting a new line on foreign
missions, but I don't think there's missionary stuff in me. I'll have
to go at the proposition some other way."
Then Pastor Drury set him going on another subject.
"What do you think of the young folks who are here?" he asked.
"Well, at first I thought they were all away ahead of our bunch at home,
and some of them are; but you soon find out that the majority is pretty
much of the same sort as ours. I think I've spotted a few slackers, but
mighty few. Most of the crowd seems to be all right, and I've already
made some real friends. But do you know which one of them all is the
most interesting fellow I've met?"
The pastor thought he did, but he merely asked, "Who?"
"Why, that Greek boy, Phil Khamis. He is from Salonika, you know. He
knows the old country like a book, and he's going back some day, maybe
to be some kind of missionary to his people, in the very places where
the apostle Paul preached. Honest, I never knew until he told me that
his Salonika is the town of those Christians to whom Paul wrote two of
his letters; those to the Thessalonians--'Thessalonika,' you know. Well,
you ought to hear Phil talk. He came over here seven years ago, and
learned the English language from the preacher at Westvale."
"Yes, I have heard about him," said Mr. Drury. "They say he lived in the
parsonage and paid the preacher for his English lessons by giving him a
new understanding of the Greek New Testament. Not many of us have found
out yet how to get such pay for being decent to our friends from the
other side."
"Well, he is a thoroughbred, anyway; and do you notice how he is right
up in front when there is anything doing? The only way you can tell he
isn't American born is that he is so anxious to help out on all the
unpleasant work. When I look at Phil it makes me boil to think of
fellows like him being called 'Wop.'"
By this time the two had swung back into the campus, and J.W. found
himself drafted to hold down second base in the Faculty-Student ball
game. But that is a story for others to tell.
On the steps of the library Marcia Dayne and some other girls were
holding an informal reception. Joe Carbrook, with one or two of his
friends, was finding it agreeable to assume a superior air concerning
the Institute. The impression the boys gave was that their coming to the
Institute at all had been a great concession, but that they were under
no illusions about the place.
"All this is all right," Joe was saying, "for those who need it, but
what's the good of it all to us? For instance, what do you get out of
it, Marcia?"
"What do you think I want to get out of it? If you cared for the young
people's work at home, I should think you could see how 'all this,' as
you call it, would help you to do better work and more of it at
Delafield."
"As you ought to know pretty well, Marcia," Joe replied, "back home they
think I don't care much for the young people's work. It is a little too
prim and ready-to-wear for me, if you'll excuse me for saying so. No fun
in it at all, though I'll admit some of the classes here have more life
in them than I looked for."
One of the other girls, who knew him well enough to speak with large
frankness, came to the defense of them all, saying: "Well, Joe, I don't
see that you get very far with what you call fun. It's mostly at the
expense of other people, including your father, who pays the bills.
Besides, since you came home from college this spring, you seem to have
run out of nearly all the bright ideas you started with. I wonder if it
ever strikes you that being a sport, as you call it, is mostly being a
nuisance to everybody? Some of us long ago got over thinking you clever
and original. You must be getting over it yourself, by now, surely."
"Many thanks, dear lady, for them kind words," Joe responded, as he
bowed low in mock acknowledgment; "you make yourself quite plain, Miss
Alma Wetherell." He flung back the insult jauntily, as he and his
companions moved on, but at least one of the group suspected that the
words had struck home.
You who know the General Secretary could easily forgive J.W. his
delight in the class of which the program said the subject was
"Methods." This is the only hour in an Institute which the Epworth
League takes for its own work. Rightly enough, it is a crowded hour,
with the whole Institute present, and usually it is an hour of
unflagging interest.
J.W. and Marty were enjoying their first Institute too much to be late
at any classes. They were merely a little earlier at this class; to miss
any of it would be a distinct loss.
Now, what the General Secretary talked about was no more than the
everyday work of the League--how it meant the young people of the church
and their work for and with young people for the sake of the future. But
he had a way with him. He said the League was a great scheme of self,
with the "ish" left off. In the League one practiced self-help, and
enjoyed the twin luxuries of self-direction and self-expression, and
came sooner or later to that strange new knowledge which is
self-discovery. He explained how Epworthians as such could live on
twenty-four hours a day, the plan being an ingenious and yet simple
financial arrangement for keeping the League work moving, both where you
are and where you aren't, even around the world. He had innumerable
stories of the devotional meeting idea, the Win-My-Chum idea, the
stewardship idea, the Institute idea, the life service idea, the
recreation idea, the study-class idea, and every other League idea so
far invented.
But all this is merely a hint of what the General Secretary meant to the
Institute, and particularly to the delegates from Delafield. Even Joe
Carbrook had been impressed. He heard the General Secretary the morning
after that little exchange of compliments on the library steps, and for
an hour thereafter let himself enjoy the rare luxury of thinking. The
results were somewhat disconcerting.
"It's funny," said Marty, as the four of them, the other three being
Joe, Marcia, and J.W., sat under a tree in the afternoon, "but I believe
that man could make even trigonometry interesting. I thought I'd heard
all that could be said about the devotional meeting; but did you get
that scheme for leaders he sprung this morning? Watch me when we get
back home, that's all."
"You needn't suppose you are the only one who got it," said Marcia.
"Everybody was trying to watch the General Secretary and to take notes
at the same time, and I don't believe you are any quicker at that than
the rest of us. Of course all of us will use as many of his ideas as we
can remember, when we get home again."
Joe Carbrook, with a new seriousness which sat awkwardly on him,
confessed that he could not understand just what was happening. It was
evident that he was ill at ease; Marcia had noticed it every time she
had seen him since that encounter with Alma Wetherell.
"I guess you folks know I am not easily caught; but I'm ready to admit
that man has hold of something. Yes, and I'm half convinced that this
Institute has hold of something. I wish I knew what it is. If I could
really believe that all I hear and see at this place is part of being
young and part of being a Christian, I might be thinking before long
about getting into the game myself. The trouble is you three and the
other Leaguers I've watched at home are just you three and the others,
and that's all. I know, and you know, what you can do. You'll take all
these ideas of League work and use them, maybe; but what I can't see is
how you will pick up the Big Idea of this place and get back home
without losing it."
"We can't," said Marcia, "not without all sorts of help, visible and
invisible. You, for instance; if you would really get into the game, as
you say, nobody could guess how much it would mean to our League. And it
might mean more to you."
"Marcia's right about that," said J.W. "The Big Idea of this place, that
you speak of, is a lot too big for us to take home alone. Maybe you'll
think I'm preaching, but I don't care, if I say that for God to handle
alone, it is not big enough. He makes the stars, and gives us his Son,
without any help from us. Nobody else can do that. But he won't make our
League at home a success without us; and all of us together can't do it
without Him. I'm not saying I know how to do it, even then, but that's
the way it looks to me. Why, Joe," he said with sudden intensity as he
faced Joe Carbrook, "if you ever get hold of the Big Idea, and the Big
Idea gets hold of you, something is sure to happen, something bigger
than any of us can figure out now. I know you have it in you."
All four showed a surprised self-consciousness over J.W.'s unexpected
venture into these rather deeper conversational waters than usual, and
there was more surprise when Joe Carbrook began to talk about himself.
He laughed to hide a touch of embarrassment, but with little mirth; and
then he said, "Well, J.W., that's not all foolishness, though I don't
see why you should pick on me. Why not Marty? Of course, I came here for
fun, and I have had some, though not just the sort I expected. And I've
had several jolts too. I might as well admit that if I could just only
see how you hitch all of this League and church business to real life, I
would be for it with all I've got. The trouble is, while I've never been
especially proud of my own record, neither have I seen much excuse yet
for what you 'active members' have been busy with. I have been playing
my way, and you have been playing yours; but it all seems mostly play to
me. All the same, I guess I am getting tired of my kind." If Joe could
ever have spoken wistfully, you might have suspected him of it just
then.
Clearly, thought Marcia Dayne, in the silence that followed, something
big was already happening. But how to help it on she could not tell; so,
with a desperate effort to do the right thing, she contrived to turn the
subject It seemed to her it had become too difficult to go further just
now without peril to Joe's strange new interest, as well as to a very
new and tremulous little hope that had begun to sing in her own heart.
The shift of the talk was a true Institute change, and would have been
most disconcerting to anyone unfamiliar with the ways of young
Christians; but Marcia was sure that what had been said would not be
forgotten, and she knew there would be another time.
It was this that made her say, "I wish you boys would suggest what sort
of stunt our district should give on stunt night; you know the time is
getting short."
"That's a fact," exclaimed Marty, sitting up. "Stunt night is to-morrow,
and our delegation has to fix up the stunt for the Fort Adams District.
Let's get to work on something. We've been mooning long enough."
For though Marty never thought as quickly as Marcia, he too felt some
instinct of fear lest by an unfortunate word they should break the spell
of Joe Carbrook's interest in the "Big Idea," and promptly the four were
deep in a study of stunts.
To the uninitiated, stunt night at the Institute is without rime or
reason, but not to those in charge who are looking ahead to Sunday. They
know that the converging and cumulative psychic forces which the
Institute invariably produces must be tempered, along about midway of
the week, by some sharp contrast in the communal life. Otherwise, the
group, like over-trained athletes, will grow emotionally stale before
the week is done, and at the end of that is let-down and flatness. Hence
"stunt night."
In the early Institute years it was easy, as in some places it still is,
for stunt night to be no more than clowning, witless and cheap; but
there is a distinct tendency to exercise the imagination in producing
more self-respecting efforts.
Cartwright, happily, is one of the forward-looking Institutes, and stunt
night, crowded with most excellent fooling, produced two or three
creditable and thought-provoking performances. One of them deserves
remembering for its own sake. Besides, it is a part of this story.
The home missions class furnished the inspiration for it, and called it
"Scum o' the Earth," an impromptu immigration pageant. A boy who had
memorized Schauffler's poem stood off stage and recited it, while group
after group of "immigrants" in the motley of the steerage passed slowly
through the improvised Ellis Island sifting process. It was all
make-believe, of course, all but one tense moment. Then Phil Khamis
stepped on the platform, incarnating in his own proper person the poet's
apostrophised Greek boy:
"Stay, are we doing you wrong,
Young fellow from Socrates' land?
You, like a Hermes so lissome and strong,
Fresh from the master Praxiteles' hand?
So you're of Spartan birth?
Descended, perhaps, from one of the band--
Deathless in story and song--
Who combed their long hair at Thermopylae's pass?
Ah, I forget the straits, alas!
More tragic than theirs, more compassion-worth,
That have doomed you to march in our 'immigrant class'
Where you're nothing but 'scum o' the earth!'"
The audience was caught unaware. It had been vastly interested in the
spectacle, as a spectacle, the more because the unusual Americanization
class which produced it had attracted general attention. But, Phil
Khamis, everybody's friend, standing there, an immigrant of the
immigrants, smiling his wistful friendly smile, was a picture as
dramatic as it was unexpected. First there were ejaculations of
astonishment and surprise. Then came the moment of understanding, and a
shining-eyed stillness fell on all. Then, what a shout! J.W. led off,
the unashamed tears falling from his brimming eyes.
On Saturday morning J.W. was sitting beside Phil Khamis at Morning
Watch. The leader had asked for answers to the question "Why did I come
to the Institute?" getting several responses of the conventional sort.
Suddenly Phil nudged J.W. and whispered, "Shall I tell why I came?" and
J.W. with the memory of stunt night's thrill not yet dulled, said
promptly, "Sure, go ahead."
When Phil got up an attentive silence fell upon them all. The Greek boy
had made many friends, as much by his engaging frankness and anxiety to
learn as by his perpetual eagerness to have a hand in every bit of hard
work that turned up. Since the stunt night incident he was everybody's
favorite.
"Friends," he said, in his rather careful, precise way, "I am here for a
different reason than any. When I was in America but a little time a
Methodist preacher made himself my friend. I could not speak English,
only a few words. He took me to his home. He taught me to talk the
American way. He find me other friends, though I could do nothing at all
for them to pay them back. Now I am Christian--real, not only baptized.
The young people of the church take me in to whatever they do. They
call me 'Phil' and never care that I am a foreigner, so when I heard
about this Institute I say to myself, 'It is something strange to me,
but I hear that many people like those in my church will be there.' I
cannot quite believe that, but it sounded good, and I wanted to come and
see. And now I know that many people are young people like those I first
knew. They treat me just the same. It makes me love America much more;
and if I could tell my people in the old country that all this good has
come to me from the church, they could not believe it. Still, it is
true. Everything I have to-day has come to me by goodness of Christian
people."
There were some half-embarrassed "Amens," and more than one hitherto
unsuspected cold required considerable attention. All the way to
breakfast Phil held embarrassed court, while his hand was shaken and his
shoulder was thumped and he was told, solo and chorus, by all who could
get near him, that "He's all right!"--"Who's all right?" "Phil Khamis!"
But J.W. was walking slowly toward the dining hall, alone. As he had
listened to Phil, at first he thought, "Good old scout, he's putting it
over," but by the time the Greek's simple words were ended, J.W. was
looking himself straight in the eye. "Young fellow," he was saying, "you
have come mighty near feeling glad that you have had so many more
advantages than this stranger, and yet can't you see that what he says
about himself is almost as true about you? All you have to-day--this
Institute, your religion, your church, your friends, the kind of a home
you have and are so proud of--everything has come to you by what Phil
calls the goodness of Christian people."
And then it was breakfast time, with an imperative call on J.W. from the
Fort Adams table for "that new yell we fixed up last night," and the
minutes in which he had talked with himself were for the time forgotten.
But the memory of them came back in the days after the Institute was
itself a memory.
* * * * *
The Saturday night camp fire at this Institute, contrary to the usual
custom, was not co-ed. The boys went down to the lake shore and sat
around a big fire on the sand. The girls had their fire on the slope of
a hill at the other edge of the campus.
Nor does this Institute care for too much praise of itself. Its
traditional spirit is to work more for outcomes than for the devices
which produce complacency. It stages only a few opportunities of telling
"Why I like this Institute."
So, at the camp fires a man talked to the boys and a woman to the girls,
not about the Institute, but about life. These speakers knew the strange
effect an Institute week has on impressionable and romantic youth; they
knew that by this time scores of the students were either saying to
themselves, "I've got to do something big before this thing's over," or
were vainly trying to put the conviction away.
The woman who talked to the girls happened to be a preacher's wife.
This gave her a certain advantage when she told the listening girls that
the greatest of all occupations for them was not some special vocation,
but what Ida Tarbell has called "the business of being a woman." It was
good preparation for the next day's program, with its specific and
glamorous appeal, for it put first the great claim, so that special
vocations could be seen in clear air and could be fairly measured.
Pastor Drury, who talked to the boys, was talking to them all, as J.W.
very well knew, but every word seemed for him; as, indeed, it was, in a
sense that he did not suspect. He was not surprised that his pastor
should present the Christian life as effectively livable by bricklayers
and business men as surely as by missionaries. He had heard that before.
But to J.W. the old message had a new setting, a new force. And never
before had he been so ready to receive it.
The songs had sung themselves out, as the fire changed from roaring
flame and flying sparks to a great bed of living coals. From the world's
beginning a glowing hearth has been perfect focus for straight thought
and plain speech. The boys found it so this night.
The minister began so simply that it seemed almost as if his voice were
only the musings of many, just become audible. "I know," said he, "that
to-morrow some of you will find yourselves, and will eagerly offer your
lives for religious callings. We shall all be proud of you and glad to
see it. But most of you cannot do that. You are already sure that you
must be content to live 'ordinary Christian lives,' It is possible that
to-morrow you may feel a little out of the picture. And those who are
hearing a special call might regard you, quite unconsciously, of course,
as not exactly on their level."
"Now, suppose we get this thing straight to-night. There is no great nor
small, no high nor low, in real service. The differences are only in the
forms of work you do. The quality may be just as fine in one place as in
another. The boy who goes into the ministry, or who becomes a medical
missionary, will have peculiar chances for usefulness. So also will the
boy who goes into business or farming or teaching, or any other
so-called secular occupation. Just because he is not called to religious
work as a daily business he dare not think that he has no call. God's
calling is not for the few, but for the many. And just now the man who
puts his whole soul into being an out-and-out Christian in his daily
business and in his personal life as a responsible citizen must have the
genuine missionary spirit. He must live like a prophet, that is, a
messenger from God. He must know the Christian meaning of all that
happens in the world. And he must stand for the whole Christian program.
Otherwise, not all the ministers and missionaries in the world can save
our civilization. It is your chance of a great career. You who will make
up the rank and file of the Christian army in the next twenty-five
years--do you know what you are? _You are the hope of the world!"_
As the group broke up in the dim light of the dying embers, J.W.
stumbled into Joe Carbrook, and the two headed for the tents together.
They had been on a much more friendly footing since Thursday.
"Say, J.W.," said Joe, abruptly, "what's the matter with me? I came to
this place without knowing just why; thought I'd just have a good time,
I suppose; but here I am being bumped up against something new and big
every little while, until I wonder if it's the same world that I was
living in before I came. Do you suppose anybody else feels that way? Is
it the place? Or the people? Or what?"
"I don't just know," said J.W., trying to keep from showing his
surprise. "I feel a good deal that way myself. I think it's maybe that
this is the first time we've ever been forced to look squarely at some
of the things that seem so natural here. At home it's easy to dodge. You
know that, only you've dodged one way and I've done it another."
"But do you feel different, the way I do, J.W.? Do you feel like saying
to yourself: 'Looka here, Joe Carbrook, quit being a fool. See what you
could do if you settled down to getting ready for something real. Like
being a doctor, now.' Do _you_ feel that way? You don't know it, but
I've always thought I could be a doctor, if I could see anything in it.
And then the other side of me speaks up and says: 'Joe Carbrook, don't
kid yourself. You know you haven't got the nerve to try, even if you had
the grit to stick it through.' Is it that way with you, J.W.? You've
paid more attention to religion and all that than I ever did. And what
you said on Thursday about the 'Big Idea' has kept me guessing ever
since."
"No, Joe, my trouble's not like yours. I know I can't be a doctor, nor a
preacher, nor a missionary. I've got nothing of that in me. But what we
heard to-night at the camp fire came straight at me. As I tried to say
the other day, if you get the 'Big Idea' of the Institute, Christian
service looks like a great life. But me--I've no hope to be anything
particular; just one of the crowd. And I never quite saw until to-night
how that might be a great life too."
As they were parting, J.W. ventured a bold suggestion. "Say, Joe, if you
think you could be a doctor, _why not a missionary doctor?"_
Joe's answer was a swift turning on his heel, and he strode away with
never a word.
"Probably made him mad," thought J.W. "I wonder why I said it. Joe's the
last boy in the world to have any such notion. But--well, something's
already begun to happen to him, that's sure--and to me too."
On Sunday the little world of the Institute assumed a new and no less
attractive aspect. Everybody was dressed for Sunday, as at home. Classes
were over; and games also; the dining room became for the first time a
place of comparative quiet, with now and then the singing of a great old
hymn, just to voice the Institute consciousness.
The Morning Watch talk had been a little more direct, a little more
tense. And before the Bishop's sermon came the love feast. Now, the
Methodists of the older generation made much of their love feasts, but
in these days, except at the Annual Conference, an occasional Institute
is almost the only place where it flourishes with something of the
ancient fervor.
Many changes have come to Methodism since the great days of the love
feast; changes of custom and thought and speech. But your ardent young
Methodist of any period, Chaplain McCabe, Peter Cartwright, Jesse Lee,
Captain Webb, would have understood and gloried in this Institute love
feast. It spoke their speech.
Our group from Delafield will never forget it.
Nearly all of them spoke; Marcia Dayne first because she was usually
expected to lead in everything of the sort, then Marty, then J.W., and,
last of all and most astounding, Joe Carbrook.
Marty looked the soldier, and he put his confession into military terms.
He spoke about his Captain and waiting for orders, and a new
understanding of obedience.
Before J.W. got his chance to speak, the leader read a night letter from
an Institute far away, conveying the greetings of six hundred young
people to their fellow Epworthians.
J.W. could not bring himself to speak in terms of personal experience.
He was still under the spell of last night's camp fire, and his brief
encounter with Joe Carbrook, but without quite knowing what could
possibly come of all that. And the telegram gave him an excuse to speak
in another vein. You must remember that up to now he had been wholly
local in his League interests. He had gone to no conventions, he was not
a reader of _The Epworth Herald_, and to him the Central Office was as
though it had not been.
"I wonder if anybody else feels as I do," he said, "about this League of
ours? Until this last week I never thought much about it. But we've just
heard that telegram from an Institute bigger than this, a thousand miles
off. And there's fifty-five or sixty Institutes going on this year,
besides the winter Institutes, the conventions, and all the other
gatherings. We seem to belong to a movement that enrolls almost a
million young people, with all sorts of chances to learn how it can do
all sorts of Christian work by actually _doing_ it. This isn't the only
thing I've found out here, but it makes me want to see the whole League
become as good as it is big. I don't want to be dazzled by the size of
it, because I know how many other members are just as little use as I've
been. Only when I get home I hope I'm going to be a different sort of an
Epworthian, and I can't help wishing that we all felt that way about
being more good in the League. We can make it a hundred times more
useful to the church and to our Master."
Many others spoke like that, some of them because they could find
nothing more intimate to say, some here and there those who, like J.W.,
could not quite trust themselves yet to talk of their deeper personal
experiences.
And then Joe Carbrook arose. He spoke easily, as Joe always did, but it
was a new Joe Carbrook, and only the Delafield delegation understood how
amazing was the change.
"This Institute has made me all sorts of trouble," he said. "I had
nothing else to do, and without caring anything about it, except to get
some new fun out of it, I came along, intending to stir up some of you
if I could, and I knew I could. But I've seen what a fool I was. Every
day I've seen that a little more distinctly. And last night, just as I
was leaving one of the boys after the camp fire he said something about
what I might do with my life. I don't know how seriously he meant it.
Maybe he doesn't, either. I went off without answering him. There wasn't
any answer, except that I knew I wasn't fit even to think about it. And
then, thank God, I met a man who understood what was wrong with me. He's
our pastor. I haven't been anything but trouble to him at home, but that
made no difference to him. And he introduced me, down yonder by the
lake, to a Friend I had never known before, some one infinitely
understanding, infinitely forgiving. He showed me that before I could
find what I ought to be I'd have to come to terms with that Friend. And
I have. Whatever happens to me, whatever I may find to do, I want now
and here for the first time in my life to confess Jesus Christ as my
Saviour and Lord!"
The Bishop preached a great sermon, but it is doubtful whether the
Delafield delegation rightly appreciated it. They were too much
occupied with the incredible fact that Joe Carbrook had been converted,
and had openly confessed it.
More was to come. The afternoon meeting, long established in the
Institute world as the "Life Work Service," was in the hands of a few
leaders who knew both its power and peril. An invitation would be given
for all to declare their purpose who felt called to special Christian
work. The difficulty was to encourage the most timid of those who,
despite their timidity, felt sure of the inner voice, and yet prevent a
stampede among those who, without any depth of desire, were in love with
emotion, and would enjoy being conspicuous, if only for the brief moment
of the service.
For once a woman made the address--a wise woman, let it be said, who
made skillful and sure distinctions between the Christian life as a life
and the work of the Christian Church as one way of living that life.
It would have been a successful afternoon in any case, but three
incidents helped the speaker. When she asked those to declare themselves
who had decided for definite Christian work, young people in all parts
of the room arose, and one after another they spoke, for the most part
simply and modestly, of their hope and purpose. And Joe Carbrook was
among them!
He said very little, the nub of it being that he had always thought of
being a doctor, but not until a chance remark made by John Wesley, Jr.,
last night had the idea appeared to him important. Just to make one more
among the thousands of doctors in America was one thing, he said. It
was quite another to think of being the only physician among a great,
helpless population. But to be a missionary doctor a man had to be first
a missionary. And how could he be a missionary if he were not a
Christian? Well, as he had confessed at the love feast, that was settled
last night, and as soon as it had been attended to be knew there was
nothing else in the way. So he must work now toward being a medical
missionary.
Joe's declaration stirred the whole assembly. And while the influence of
it was still on them, J.W. saw Martin Luther Shenk, his classmate and
doubly his chum since a memorable day of the preceding October, get up
and quietly announce his purpose of becoming a minister. "And I hope,"
said Marty, "that I may find my lifework in some of the new home mission
fields we have been learning about this week."
At that point the leader felt more than a little anxious. These two
decisions, with all their restraint, had in them something infectious,
and she feared lest some young people, not holding themselves perfectly
in hand, might be moved to sentimental and unreflecting declaration.
If there had been any such danger, Marcia Dayne dispelled it. She was
all aglow with a new joy of her own, whose secret none knew but herself,
though one other had almost dared to hope he could guess.
"May I speak?" she asked. "I have no decision to make for myself. Last
year I took the 'Whatever, whenever, wherever' pledge, and I intend to
keep it, though I am not yet sure what it will mean. But I know a boy
here who will not talk unless somebody asks him, and there's a reason
why I think he should be asked. Please, mayn't we hear from John Wesley
Farwell, Jr., about _his_ kind of a call?"
J.W., taken unawares at the mention of his name, was still at a loss
when the leader seconded Marcia's invitation; and the knowledge that he
was expected to say something unusual did not make for self-control. But
he understood Marcia's purpose, and tried to pull himself together.
"Miss Dayne is president of our home Chapter, and she had a lot to do
with my coming to the Institute," he began. "She has heard me talk since
I found out a little about the Institute, and I told her this morning
something of what Joe Carbrook and I had discussed last night after the
camp fire."
Well, to get to the point, I think she wants me to say, and I'm saying
it to myself most of all, that for nearly all of us young people,
Christian lifework must mean making an honest living, doing all we can
to make our religion count at home, and then backing up with all we've
got, by prayer and money and brains, all these others like Joe Carbrook
and Marty Shenk, who are going into the hardest places to put up the
biggest fight that's in them. We've just got to do it, or be quitters.
As Phil Khamis said at Morning Watch yesterday, 'Everything we have has
come to us by the goodness of Christian people.' We aren't willing to be
the last links of that chain.
We don't want any special recognition, but I hope the Bishop and the
General Secretary and the Dean and all the rest of the League leaders
will know they can count on us just as we know they can count on these
friends of ours who have just become life service volunteers.
Nobody knows what might have happened if some one had not spoken like
that, but as the group of new volunteers stood about the platform at the
close of the meeting, the other young people, instead of wandering off
and feeling themselves of no significance, came crowding about them, to
say to them, boy-and-girl fashion, something of what J.W.'s little
speech had suggested. Out of some four hundred Epworthians enrolled in
the Institute, about forty had made definite decisions; but certainly
not less than two hundred more had also faced the future, and in some
sort had made a new contract with themselves and with God.
The Institute ended there, except for a simple vesper service after the
evening meal, and on Monday morning the whole company was homeward
bound.
The Delafield delegation had separated. The larger group went home by
train, but Joe Carbrook's insistence was not to be withstood, so J.W.
and Marty, Marcia Dayne and Pastor Drury were Joe's passengers for the
fifty-odd miles between Institute and home.
They sang, they cheered, they yelled the Institute yells. They lived
over the crowded days of the week that had so swiftly passed. But most
of all they deeply resolved that so far as they could help to do it
while they were at home the League Chapter of Delafield should be made
over into something of more use to the church to which it belonged.
It was Marty who put their purpose into the fewest words. "We, and the
others who have been to the Institute, don't think we know every little
League thing," said he, "and we don't think we are the whole League
either. But every time anybody in our Chapter starts anything good, he's
going to have more and better help than he ever had before."
Which thing came to pass, as may one day be recorded. The Rev. Walter
Drury kept his own counsel, but he knew that more had happened than the
putting of new life into the League. The Experiment had progressed
safely through some most difficult stages.