JOHN WESLEY, JR.'S BRINGING UP
Those words of Phil Khamis at Morning Watch kept popping into J.W.'s
head in the days following the Institute--"Everything I have to-day has
come to me by the goodness of Christian people."
"I know that must be true," he would say to himself, "but it's worth
tracing back."
The preacher was coming over to supper one night, as he loved to do; and
J.W. made up his mind to bring Phil's idea into the table talk. He was
on even better terms with the preacher than he used to be.
J.W.'s mother hadn't said much about the Institute, though she had
listened eagerly to all his talk of the crowded week, and she was
vaguely ill at ease. She had hoped for something, she did not know just
what, from the Institute, and she was not yet sure whether she ought to
feel disappointed.
But she provided a fine supper, to which the menfolk paid the most
practical and sincere of all compliments. And since nobody had anything
else on for the evening, there was plenty of time for talk.
The mother had a moment aside with the minister, and there was a touch
of anxiety in her question: "Do you think the Institute helped my boy?"
And the pastor had just time to whisper back, "It helped him much, but
he gave even more help than he got You have reason to be proud of him. I
am. He's growing."
It was not very definite, but it brought no small comfort to the
mother's heart.
"This Institute idea seems to be everywhere," said J.W., Sr., to the
pastor, "but how did it get started? I used to be in the Epworth League,
but we had nothing like it then."
"That's not so very much of a story," said the pastor. "We have the
Institute idea because we had to have it. And so the League gave it form
and substance."
"Well," J.W., Jr., chimed in, "I think it's about time more people knew
about it. I've wanted to ask you to explain it ever since we came back
from the Institute."
The pastor nodded. "I know; but remember even you were not really
interested until you had been at an Institute. Do you think our
Institute just happened, J.W.?"
"I know it didn't," J.W. replied. "Somebody did a lot of planning and
scheming."
"Yes," returned the pastor, "but did you notice that a large part of its
work touched subjects familiar to you, the local League activities, for
instance--the devotional meeting, and Mission Study, and stewardship,
and the scope of the business meeting which not so long ago elected you
to membership?"
"Yes, you're right, though I don't see anything remarkable in that. It
was a League Institute, wasn't it?"
"Certainly. But still, if there had not been any local Chapter, there
could have been no Institute, don't you see? What I mean is that the
Institute came because your Chapter needed it, and you needed it; not
because the Institute needed you. It's merely a matter of tracing
things back."
J.W., Jr., thought of Phil's words. "Sure enough," he responded,
"tracing things back makes a lot of difference. I've been going over
what Phil Khamis said at the Morning Watch--you remember? How everything
he has to-day has come to him by the goodness of Christian people. At
first I thought that was no more than a description of his particular
case, because I knew how true it was. But when you begin to trace things
back, as you say, what's true about Phil is true about all of
us--anyway, about me."
"How is that, son?" Mrs. Farwell asked gently.
"Well, I mean," J.W. smilingly answered her, though flushing a little
too, "the Institute, that seemed to me something new and different, is
really tied up to what you folks and the whole church have been doing
for me as far back as I can remember."
And so they talked, parents and pastor and J.W., quite naturally and
freely, of the long chain of interest which had linked his life to the
church's life, back through all the years to his babyhood.
J.W. had been in the League only a year or two, but it seemed to him
that he had been in the church always. And the memories of his boyhood
which had the church for center, were intimately interwoven with all his
other experiences.
As his father said, "I guess, pastor, if you tried to take out of J.W.'s
young life all that the church has meant to him, it would puzzle a
professor to explain whatever might be left."
J.W. had been born in the country, on a farm whose every tree and fence
corner he still loved. His first recollections of the church as part of
his life had to do with the Sunday morning drive to the little
meetinghouse, which stood where the road to town skirted a low hill. It
had horse-sheds on one side, stretching back to the rear of the church
lot, and some sizeable elms and maples were grouped about its front and
sides. It was a one-room structure, unless you counted the space
curtained off for the primary class, as J.W. always did. For back of
this curtain's protecting folds he had begun his career as a Sunday
school pupil and had made his first friends. At that time even district
school was yet a year ahead of him, with its wider democratic joys and
griefs, and its larger freedom from parental oversight.
When J.W. was six, going on seven, the family moved to Delafield,
though retaining ownership of the farm, and for years J.W. spent nearly
every Saturday on the old place, in free and blissful association with
the Shenk children, whose father was the tenant. It was here that he and
Martin Luther Shenk, already introduced as "Marty," being of the same
age, had sworn eternal friendship, a vow which as yet showed no sign
whatever of the ravages of time. There were three other children, Ben
and Alice and Jeannette. Now, Jeannette was only two years younger than
J.W. and Marty, but through most of the years when J.W. was going every
week to the farm, she was "only a girl," and far behind the two chums by
all the exacting standards which to boys are more than law. But there
came a time----
J.W., Sr., reveling in reminiscences before so patient a listener as the
preacher, though it was an old story, rehearsed how he had served for
years as superintendent of the country Sunday school, and how Mrs.
Farwell was teacher of the Girls' Bible Class. Their home had always
been Methodist headquarters, he said, as old-time Methodists usually
say, and with truth.
When they moved to town the change brought no loss of church interest;
the Farwells merely transferred it entire to Delafield First Church
("First" being more a title than a numeral, since there was no second).
But First Church had not a few progressive saints. They wanted the best
that could be had, so J.W., Sr., Sunday school enthusiast that he was,
found himself in a new place of opportunity. The Board of Sunday Schools
at Chicago had been asked to help Delafield get itself in line with the
best ideas and methods, and J.W., Sr., found the beginnings, at least,
of Sunday school science in active operation. At first, like a true
country man, he was a little inclined to counsels of caution, but in
his country Sunday school work he had acquired such strong opinions
about old fogies that he dreaded being thought one himself.
"And that's how it happened," he said with a laugh, "that I was soon
reckoned among the progressives. In that first year I helped 'em win
their fight for separate departments, and before long we had the makings
of a real graded Sunday school. Don't you remember, mother, how proud
you were when young J.W. there was graduated from the Primary into the
Junior Department?"
All this was before Pastor Drury's time, of course, but he had gone
through the same experiences in other pastorates, and needed not to have
anything explained.
"How long have we had a teacher-training class in our Sunday school?" he
asked.
That called out the story of the struggles to set up what many openly
called a useless and foolish enterprise. The Sunday school was
chronically short of teachers, and yet J.W., Sr., and the other
reformers insisted on taking out of the regular classes the best
teachers in the school, and a score of the most promising young people.
This group went off by itself into a remote part of the church. It
furnished no substitute teachers. It wasn't heard of at all. And loud
were the complaints about its crippling the school.
"But, pastor, you should have seen the difference when the first dozen
real teachers came out of that class; we were able to reorganize the
whole school. Our John Wesley got a teacher he'll never forget. And, of
course, we kept the training class going; it's never stopped since. The
Board of Sunday Schools has given us the courses and helped us keep the
class up to grade in its work, and you know what sort of teachers we
have now."
The pastor did, and was properly thankful. In some of his other
pastorates it had been otherwise, to his sorrow.
"Speaking of the Board of Sunday Schools," the elder Farwell resumed,
for this was a hobby he missed no chance to ride, "it made all the
difference with us in our work for a better Sunday school--gave us
expert backing, you know. And I notice by its latest annual report--yes,
I always get a copy, though J.W. thinks it dry reading--that it is
helping Sunday schools by the thousand, not in this country only, but
wherever in the world our church is at work. Of course you know how it
starts Sunday schools, and how often they grow into churches. Well, it
didn't quite do that here, but this church is a sight better and bigger
because we began to take the Board's advice when we did. It was a good
thing for our boy, and many another boy and girl, that the Board woke us
up."
"It hasn't all been easy work, though," the minister suggested. "I
remember that when I came I found there was a good deal of discontent
over the Graded Lessons."
"Sure there was," said J.W., Sr. "We had all been brought up on the
Uniform Lessons, and most of us thought they were just right. Besides,
we rather enjoyed thinking of ourselves as keeping step with the whole
Sunday school world--all over the wide earth everybody studying the same
scripture on the same Sunday. And that was a big idea to get into the
minds of Christians of every name everywhere."
"Yes, but, Dad," put in J.W., "what was the good of it if the lessons
didn't fit everybody? Did people think that the kids in the primary and
their mothers in ma's class ought to study the same lesson? or did they
think they could fit the same lesson to everybody by the different notes
they put into the Quarterlies?"
"Well, son," his father replied, "I reckon we thought both ways. And I'm
not so sure yet that it can't be done. But if one thing more than
another reconciled me to the Graded Lessons, it was that they made being
a Sunday school teacher a good deal bigger job than it had ever been. It
was harder work, because every lesson had to be studied by the teacher,
and in a different way from what was thought good enough in the old
days. And I'm for anything, Graded Lessons or whatever, that'll make
people take Sunday school teaching more seriously."
Then Mrs. Farwell ventured to take up the story. It was about that time,
in the very beginning of the Drury pastorate, that J.W. joined the
church on probation; much to her surprise and humbling.
"I hadn't even thought of it," she said, "though I should have been the
first one. He had been getting ready in the Junior League, as I very
well knew, but one day, as you may remember"--Brother Drury did, for
that day was the real beginning of this story--"you made an invitation
at the end of a real simple sermon, and if J.W., Jr., didn't get right
up from my side and walk straight to the front!"
After that there had been a probationers' class, with J.W. and perhaps
twenty others meeting the pastor every week for straight religious
teaching, so that at Easter, when they came up for membership, what with
their Sunday school and Junior League training, and what with the
pastor's more personal instruction, they were able to pass a pretty fair
examination on the great Christian truths, and on the general scheme of
the church's work.
"For a time mother was a trifle disappointed that J.W. hadn't waited for
the big revival we had the next year," said J.W., Sr., "but I think she
was glad afterward."
"Yes, I was," the mother said. "You see, I had been brought up to
believe in revivals, and I do yet, but we had no such chance to get the
right Christian start when we were little children, as J.W. has had, if
you'll let his mother say so, and that made a revival a good deal more
important to us when our church did get ready for one. But the other way
is all right too. I'm mother enough to be glad J.W. hasn't known some of
the experiences the boys of my time went through, and the girls as well.
He's no worse a Christian for having been right in the church ever since
I put him in short dresses, are you, son? And I will say that his father
was always with me in holding to the promises we made when he was
baptized. We've not done what we might, but we've never forgotten that
those promises were made to be kept."
J.W. felt none of his old shrinking from such talk, especially since the
Institute, and yet he had the healthy boy's reluctance to discuss
himself in company. But this was interesting him, outside himself.
He turned to the pastor. "That's what I meant when I told you what Phil
said. I'm all for the church, and church people and church ways; why
shouldn't I be? I've never known anything else. I remember well the one
thing I didn't like when it first came along; and that was the new sort
of Christmas celebration Dad and the others planned when I was ten or
eleven. You know what Christmas means to such kids, and I guess we were
all selfish together, because we didn't use our heads. Well, the Sunday
school proposed that instead of us all getting something we should all
give something. It looked pretty cheap to us little fellows at first,
and our teacher had all he could do to hold us in line. But let me tell
you, every boy was for it when the time came. We found that we could
have as much fun giving things away as we could grabbing things, and,
anyway, nobody really cared for those mosquito net stockings filled with
nuts and candy and one orange. It was only the idea of getting something
for nothing. That first 'giving Christmas,' I remember, our class
dressed up as delivery boys, and we came on the platform with enough
groceries for a small truck load, that we had bought with our own money.
The orphanage got 'em next day. And one class was dusty millers,
carrying sacks of flour, and another put on a stunt of searching for
Captain Kidd's treasure, and they found a keg of shining coins (new
pennies, they were)--more than a thousand of 'em. Everything went to the
orphanage, or the hospital; and then when the Board of Sunday Schools
began to get us interested in other Sunday schools and in missions--I
remember a scheme they call a 'Partnership Plan' that was great; I don't
know what happened to it--I got right into the game every time."
"How do you happen to know so much about the Board of Sunday Schools,
J.W.?" asked Mr. Drury.
"Oh, that's easy. You know how it is in our Sunday school: they don't
make one or two of us young fellows serve as librarians and secretaries
and such and miss all the class work: they have more help, and we all
get into class for the lesson. Well, two years ago Dad told me you had
nominated me for something at the annual Sunday school meeting. It was
only a sort of assistant secretary's job, but very soon I began to catch
on, and I've seen a lot of the letters and leaflets that come from the
Board in Chicago. Well, let me tell you that Board of Sunday Schools is
a whale of a machine. Why, it's the whole church at work to make better
Sunday schools, and more of 'em. They have Sunday school workers in all
sorts of wild places, and Sunday school missionaries in foreign lands.
Yes, and last year I happened to meet one of their secretaries, at your
house, you may remember. But you'd never think he was just a secretary,
he was so keen and wide awake. He knew the Boy Scouts from A to Z, and
that got me, 'cause I'm not so old that I've forgotten my scouting. And
he knew baseball, and boys' books, and all that. Don't you think,
Brother Drury, if more of the fellows knew what the real Sunday school
work is they would take to it like colts to a bran mash?"
"They couldn't help it," said the pastor. "And you may have noticed that
your father and the other people of our Sunday School Board are trying
to get them to find out some of the things you have found out. For
instance, you know what the two organized classes of high-school
freshmen are doing, and the other organized classes. Seems to me their
members are finding out that Sunday school is something big and fine."
"That they are," Mrs. Farwell agreed, "and you mustn't forget my
wonderful class of young married women, and the men's class of nearly a
hundred. I think our Sunday school has really begun to change the ideas
of a lot of people. Just think how little trouble we have now with what
Graded Lessons we have, and how happy all our teachers are because they
have the helps they need for just the sort of pupils that are in their
classes."
"That's so," said J.W., Sr. "I don't suppose even old Brother Barnacle,
'sot' as he is, would vote to go back to the times when the
superintendent reviewed the lesson the same way the teachers taught it,
from a printed list of questions. Seems as if I can hear Henry J. Locke
yet--his farm joins ours down by the creek--when he conducted the
reviewing at Deep Creek. He would hold his quarterly at arm's length to
favor his eyes, and then look up from it to the school and shoot the
question at everybody, 'And what did Peter do _then_, HEY?' He sure did
come out strong on Peter; but I'll say this for him, that he never
skipped a question from start to finish."
All three laughed a little over Henry J. Locke, and then the pastor said
he mustn't stay much longer. But he did want to back up J.W.'s belief
that what Phil Khamis had said was true of everybody--we are all
debtors.
"Look at this young J.W. here, will you," he said to the father and
mother, for once letting himself go, "with a name he's proud of, and a
home life that many a Fifth Avenue and Lake Shore Drive family would be
glad to pay a million for, if such goods were on sale in the stores. I'm
going to tell him something he already knows. Young man," and there was
a gleam in the pastor's eye that was not all to the credit of the work
he was praising, "you owe a big debt to the Sunday school. I'm not
jealous for the church, or for any other part of it, but by your own
admission the Sunday school has had a lot to do with your education.
Very well; remember it is a part of what Phil said, and what you are
because of the Sunday school you have become by the goodness of
Christian people. I don't think you'll forget it, seeing that you have
two of that sort of people in your own home all the time."
And then, with a fine naturalness the little group knelt by the chairs,
and two of the four, he who was pastor of the whole flock and he who
with simple dignity was priest in his own household, gave thanks to God
for the manifold goodness of Christian people, of which they were all
partakers every day.
As he went home, Walter Drury thought of the long days that stretched
out ahead before he could see the outcomes of the great Experiment, but
this night had seen a good night's work done in the laboratory, and he
was content.
One tale of the past had been much in J.W.'s thought that night, but
nothing on earth could have induced him to talk about it, especially
since the happenings at the Institute. Only one other person knew all of
its inwardness, though the preacher guessed most of the secret pretty
shrewdly, and everybody was familiar with its outcome.
It was the story of Marty Shenk's conversion.
These two had been David and Jonathan from their little boy days, no
less friends because they were so unlike; Marty, a quiet, brooding,
knowledge-hungry youngster, and J.W. matter-of-fact, taking things as
they came and asking few questions, but always the leader in games and
mischief; each the other's champion against all comers.
Marty's father, tenant-farmer on the Farwell farm, was steady enough and
dependable, but never one to get ahead much. Before the Farwells moved
to town he had rarely stayed on the same farm more than a year or two,
but, as he said, "J.W. Farwell was different, and anybody who wanted to
be decent could get along with him." So, for many Saturdays and
vacations of boyhood years J.W. and Marty had roamed the countryside,
and were letter-perfect in their boy-knowledge of the old farm.
Marty came in to high school from the farm, and often he stayed with
J.W. over the weekend. His school work was uneven--ahead in mathematics,
and the sciences, and something below the average in other studies.
That, however, has no place in this story.
Of course he and J.W. were thick as thieves. Except when class work made
temporary separations necessary, they lived the high-school life
together. That meant also, for these two, the social life of the church,
which occasionally paid special attention to the students.
So you might find them at Epworth League socials, Sunday school class
doings, in the Sunday school orchestra--violin and b-flat cornet
respectively--and, most significant of all in its effect on all the
later years, they went through Win-My-Chum week together. The hand of
the pastor was in that, too.
Marty was not a Christian. J.W. had been a church member for years, and
early in his course he had faced and accepted all that being a Christian
seemed to mean to a high-school boy.
There had been hard places to get over; some of the boys and girls were
merciless in their unconscious tests of his religion. Some were openly
scornful, and others sought by indirect and furtive means to break his
influence in the school. For he had no small gift of leadership, and he
cared a good deal that it should count for the decencies of high-school
life. By senior year the sort of trouble that a Christian boy encounters
in school was almost all ended, but it had been more through his dogged
resistance to opposition than because of any special zest in Christian
service.
And then came the announcement of Win-My-Chum week, with J.W.
confronted by two stubborn facts. He had only one real chum, and that
chum was not a Christian. Pastor Drury had let fall a remark, a month
before the Week, to the effect that any Christian who had a chum could
dodge Win-My-Chum week, but he couldn't dodge his chum. When the week
was past, the chum would still be on hand.
Think as he would, there was no honest way of escape from whatever those
facts might require of him, so J.W., long accustomed to go ahead and
take what came, had known himself bound by the obligations of this
matter also, days and days before the activities of Win-My-Chum week
began.
The two were out one Saturday on the north road. They had been up to the
woods on Barker's Hill for nuts, and with good success. The day was
warm, the way was long, and there was no hurry. When they came to the
roadside at the wood's edge they sat on a fallen tree and talked. At
least Marty did. For J.W. was not himself.
It was his chance, and he knew it. But a thousand impulses leaped to
life within him to make him put off what he knew he ought to say. The
fear of being misunderstood--even by Marty--the knowledge that Marty, in
the qualities by which boys judge and are judged, was quite as "good" as
himself; and, above all, his sense of total unfitness to be a pattern of
the Christian life to anybody, filled him with an uneasiness that
actually hurt.
And Marty soon discovered that something was amiss. Willing as he was to
do his full share of the talking, he became aware that except for
inarticulate commonplaces he was having to do it all.
"What's the matter with you all at once, J.W.?" he asked. "You're not
taken suddenly sick, are you? You were all right when we were among the
trees. _Are_ you sick?"
J.W. laughed shortly. "No, old man, I'm not sick. But I'm up against a
new game, for me, and I'm not in training."
"Sounds interesting," said Marty, "but sort of mysterious. Is it
anything I can do team-work on?"
"It surely is, but first I've got to say something, and I want you to
promise that you won't think I'm putting on, or butting in, because I'm
not; nothing like it. Will you?"
"Will I promise?" said Marty, much bewildered. "Course I'll promise not
to think anything about you that you don't want me to think, but I must
say I don't know within a thousand miles what you're driving at. Out
with it, and even if you're the train bandit who held up the Cannonball
or if you've plotted to kidnap the Board of Education, I'll never tell."
Marty's quizzical humor was not making J.W.'s enterprise any easier. He
had always supposed that what the leaflets called "personal evangelism"
had to be done in a spirit of solemnity. But how was he to acquire the
proper frame of mind? And certainly there was nothing solemn about Marty
just now. Yet the thing had gone too far; it was too late to retreat. He
tried to think how Mr. Drury would do it, but saw only that if it was
Mr. Dairy's business he would go straight to the center of it.
Desperately, therefore, he plunged in.
"Well, Marty," he said, speaking now with nervous haste, "what I'm up
against is this. What's the matter with your being a Christian?"
He will never forget the swift look of blank amazement that Marty turned
on him, nor the slow-mounting flush that followed the first astonished
start. For Marty did not answer, and turned his face away. J.W. was sure
that in his blundering bluntness he had offended and probably angered
his closest friend. The distress of that thought served at least to
drive away all the self-consciousness which thus far had plagued him.
"Say, Marty," he pleaded, putting his hand on the other's arm, "forget
it, if I've hurt your feelings. I know as well as you do that I'm not
fit to talk about such things to anybody, and, honest, I meant nothing
but to say what I knew I'd got to say."
Then Marty turned himself back slowly, and J.W. saw the troubled look
in his eyes. In a voice that trembled despite his proud effort at
control, he said, "Old man, you needn't apologize. You did surprise me,
I'll admit; I wasn't looking for anything like this. It's all right,
though, and I'm certainly not mad about it. But, say, J.W., let me put
something up to you. Why did you never think to ask me that question
before?"
"Why, it was this way," J.W. began, somewhat puzzled at the form of the
question, and still thinking he must set himself right with Marty. "You
know the Epworth League is planning for those special meetings
soon--'Win-My-Chum Week'--and I've been asked to lead one of the
meetings. But you can see that I wouldn't be ready to lead a meeting
like that unless I had put this thing of being a Christian up to you,
anyway. You're the only real chum I've got. Mr. Drury said something a
little while ago that made it mighty plain."
"Yes," said Marty, "I can see that. But why did you never say anything
to me about it when there wasn't any meeting coming? Haven't we always
shared everything else, since away back? This is the one subject that
you and I have kept away from in our talk of all we've ever thought
about, and I was wondering why."
"Well, I don't exactly know," J.W. replied. "It may have been that it
never seemed to be any of my business; that it was the preacher's
business, or the Sunday school teacher's, or somebody's. And you know
I've always been surer of what you really are than I have of myself. I
think I was always afraid you would either make fun of me or believe I
was letting on to be better than you were. But when the League got into
this Win-My-Chum plan, why, the name itself was an eye-opener. And I've
seen lately that a fellow's got to be a Christian, out and out, or his
religion is no good. And when I heard the preacher say, not long ago,
that a fellow might dodge Win-My-Chum week, but he couldn't forever
dodge his chum, I knew I had to speak to you. But you're sure you're not
offended?"
"Let me admit a thing to you, J.W. I've never said so before, but I've
been wanting somebody to ask me to be a Christian for a long time. I was
a coward about it, and wouldn't let on. I've been wanting to find out
what I've got to do, but I wouldn't ask. Do you think I _could_ be a
Christian?"
"I know you could be a long way better Christian than I am," J.W.
answered with unwonted feeling. "And if you did take Jesus Christ to be
your Master, it would be more than just your getting religion. You would
be the biggest kind of stand-by for me and for other people I know of.
It's the one thing you need to be a hundred per cent right. I'm a pretty
poor Christian, myself, Marty, partly because I don't know how to think
much about it, but you'd be dead in earnest to get all that there is in
the Christian life, and maybe I could follow along behind. You've always
helped every other way, and I've always wanted you to help me be a
genuine Christian."
Marty put his hand on J.W.'s shoulder and looked him straight in the
eye: "You've got me rated a lot too high," he said. "How can I help you?
But we two have been pretty good chums so far, haven't we? Well, there's
a lot to settle before I can be sure I'm a Christian, but it means
everything for you to think I can be of some use. And I promise you
this, J.W., I'll not let up until I am a Christian, and we'll stick
together all the more, when I am, us two. Is that ago?"
It was a go. J.W. was ready and far more than ready to call it a go. It
had been easier than he had expected, but then it had all been so
different from the vague and formal thing he had been afraid of. He
could hardly believe, but he had one request to make. "I know you'll
settle whatever has to be settled," he said, a bit unsteadily, "but when
it's all done, and you tell people about it, as I know you will, please,
Marty, don't bring me into it. Publicly, I mean. Let's just have this
understanding between ourselves. I can lead my meeting now, but there's
no need to say anything about me. Besides, I made a mess of it."
"It may be the best mess anybody ever stirred up for me, J.W., but I
won't say anything to worry you, if the time comes for me to say
anything at all. And I believe it will."
It did. Marty and the pastor had two or three long interviews. From the
last of them the boy came away with a new light on his face and a new
spring in his step. Evidently whatever needed to be settled, had been
settled.
He kept his promise to his chum, but that did not prevent him from
choosing the night when J.W. led the meeting to stand up at the first
opportunity and make his straightforward confession of love and loyalty,
since God had made him a sharer in the life that is in Christ. Then for
a moment J.W. feared Marty might forget their agreement, but Marty said
simply, "And part of the joy that is in my heart to-night is because
there is a new tie, the only other one we needed, between myself and my
old-time chum, the leader of this meeting."
In the back of the room Walter Drury, quietly looking on, sent up a
silent thanksgiving. The great Experiment was going well.