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When Rollin started down the street the afternoon that Jasper stood looking out of his
window, he was not thinking of Rachel Winslow and did not expect to see her anywhere. He
had come suddenly upon her as he turned into the avenue, and his heart had leaped up at the
sight of her. He walked along by her now, rejoicing after all in a little moment of this
earthly love he could not drive out of his life.
"I have just been over to see Virginia," said
Rachel. "She tells me the arrangements are nearly completed for the transfer of the
Rectangle property."
"Yes. It has been a tedious case in the courts. Did Virginia show you all the plans and
specifications for building?"
"We looked over a good many. It is astonishing to me where Virginia has managed to get
all her ideas about this work."
"Virginia knows more now about Arnold Toynbee and East End London and Institutional
Church work in America than a good many professional slum workers. She has been
spending nearly all summer in getting information." Rollin was beginning to feel more at
ease as they talked over this coming work of humanity. It was safe common ground.
"What have you been doing all summer? I have not seen much of you," Rachel suddenly
asked, and then her face warmed with its quick flush of tropical color as if she might have
implied too much interest in Rollin or too much regret at not seeing him oftener.
"I have been busy," replied Rollin briefly.
"Tell me something about it," persisted Rachel. "You say so little. Have I a right to ask?"
She put the question very frankly, turning toward Rollin in real earnest.
"Yes, certainly," he replied, with a graceful smile. "I am not so certain that I can tell you
much. I have been trying to find some way to reach the men I once knew and win them into
more useful lives."
He stopped suddenly as if he were almost afraid to go on. Rachel did not venture to suggest
anything.
"I have been a member of the same company to which you and Virginia belong," continued
Rollin, beginning again. "I have made the pledge to do as I believe Jesus would do, and it is
in trying to answer this question that I have been doing my work."
"That is what I do not understand. Virginia told me about the other. It seems wonderful to
think that you are trying to keep that pledge with us. But what can you do with the club
men?"
"You have asked me a direct question and I shall have to answer it now," replied Rollin,
smiling again. "You see, I asked myself after that night at the tent, you remember" -- he
spoke hurriedly and his voice trembled a little -- "what purpose I could now have in my life
to redeem it, to satisfy my thought of Christian discipleship. And the more I thought of it,
the more I was driven to a place where I knew I must take up the cross. Did you ever think
that of all the neglected beings in our social system none are quite so completely left alone
as the fast young men who fill the clubs and waste their time and money as I used to? The
churches look after the poor, miserable creatures like those in the Rectangle, they make
some effort to reach the working man, they have a large constituency among the average
salary-earning people, they send money and missionaries to the foreign heathen, but the
fashionable, dissipated young men around town, the clubmen, are left out of all plans for
reaching and Christianizing. And yet no class of people need it more. I said to myself: 'I
know these men, their good and their bad qualities. I have been one of them. I am not fitted to reach the Rectangle people. I do not know how. But I think I
could possibly reach some of the young men and boys who have money and time to spend.'
So that is what I have been trying to do. When I asked as you did, 'What would Jesus do?'
that was my answer. It has been also my cross."
Rollin's voice was so low on this last sentence that Rachel had difficulty in hearing him
above the noise around them. But she knew what he had said. She wanted to ask what his
methods were. But she did not know how to ask him. Her interest in his plan was larger
than mere curiosity. Rollin Page was so different now from the fashionable young man who
had asked her to be his wife that she could not help thinking of him and talking with him as
if he were an entirely new acquaintance.
They had turned off the avenue and were going up the street to Rachel's home. It was the
same street where Rollin had asked Rachel why she could not love him. They were both
stricken with a sudden shyness as they went on. Rachel had not forgotten that day and
Rollin could not. She finally broke a long silence by asking what she had not found words
for before.
"In your work with the club men, with your old acquaintances, what sort of reception do
they give you? How do you approach them? What do they say?"
Rollin was relieved when Rachel spoke. He answered quickly:
"Oh, it depends on the man. A good many of them think I am a crank. I have kept my
membership up and am in good standing in that way. I try to be wise and not provoke any
unnecessary criticism. But you would be surprised to know how many of the men have
responded to my appeal. I could hardly make you believe that, only a few nights ago, a
dozen men became honestly and earnestly engaged in a conversation over religious matters.
I have had the great joy of seeing some of the men give up bad habits and begin a new life.
'What would Jesus do?' I keep asking it. The answer comes slowly, for I am feeling my way
slowly. One thing I have found out. The men are not fighting shy of me. I think that is a
good sign. Another thing: I have actually interested some of them in the Rectangle work,
and when it is started up they will give something to help make it more powerful. And in
addition to all the rest, I have found a way to save several of the young fellows from going
to the bad in gambling."
Rollin spoke with enthusiasm. His face was transformed by his interest in the subject which
had now become a part of his real life. Rachel again noted the strong manly tone of his
speech. With it all she knew there was a deep, underlying seriousness which felt the burden
of the cross even while carrying it with joy. The next time she spoke it was with a swift
feeling of justice due to Rollin and his new life.
"Do you remember I reproached you once for not having any purpose worth living for?" she
asked, while her beautiful face seemed to Rollin more beautiful than ever when he had won
sufficient self-control to look up. "I want to say -- I feel the need of saying in justice to you
now -- that I honor you for your courage and your obedience to the promise you have made,
as you interpret the promise. The life you are living is a noble one."
Rollin trembled. His agitation was greater than he could control. Rachel could not help
seeing it. They walked along in silence. At last Rollin said: "I thank you. It has been worth more to me than I can tell you to hear you say that." He
looked into her face for one moment. She read his love for her in that look, but he did not
speak.
When they separated, Rachel went into the house and, sitting down in her room, she put her
face in her hands and said to herself: "I am beginning to know what it means to be loved by
a noble man. I shall love Rollin Page after all. What am I saying? Rachel Winslow, have
you forgotten--"
She rose and walked back and forth. She was deeply moved. Nevertheless, it was evident to herself that her emotion was not that of regret or sorrow.
Somehow a glad, new joy had come to her. She had entered another circle of experience,
and later in the day she rejoiced with a very strong and sincere gladness that her Christian
discipleship found room in this crisis in her feeling. It was indeed a part of it, for if she
was beginning to love Rollin Page it was the Christian man she had begun to love. The other
never would have moved her to this great change.
And Rollin, as he went back, treasured a hope that had been a stranger to him since Rachel
had said no that day. In that hope he went on with his work as the days sped on, and at no
time was he more successful in reaching and saving his old acquaintances than in the time
that followed that chance meeting with Rachel Winslow.
The summer had gone and Raymond was once more facing the rigor of her winter season.
Virginia had been able to accomplish a part of her plan for "capturing the Rectangle," as
she called it. But the building of houses in the field, the transforming of its bleak, bare
aspect into an attractive park, all of which was included in her plan, was a work too large to
be completed that fall after she had secured the property. But a million dollars in the hands
of a person who truly wants to do with it as Jesus would, ought to accomplish wonders for
humanity in a short time, and Henry Maxwell, going over to the scene of the new work one
day after a noon hour with the shop men, was amazed to see how much had been done
outwardly.
Yet he walked home thoughtfully, and on his way he could not avoid the question of the
continual problem thrust upon his notice by the saloon. How much had been done for the
Rectangle, after all? Even counting Virginia's and Rachel's work and Mr. Gray's, where had
it actually counted in any visible quantity? Of course, he said to himself, the redemptive
work begun and carried on by the Holy Spirit in His wonderful display of power in the First
Church and in the tent meetings had had its effect upon the life of Raymond. But as he walked past saloon after
saloon and noted the crowds going in and coming out of them, as he saw the wretched dens -- as many as ever, apparently -- as he caught the brutality and squalor and open misery and
degradation on countless faces on men and women and children, he sickened at the sight. He
found himself asking, How much cleansing could a million dollars poured into this cesspool
accomplish? Was not the living source of nearly all the human misery they sought to relieve
untouched as long as the saloons did their deadly but legitimate work? What could even such
unselfish Christian discipleship as Virginia's and Rachel's do to lessen the stream of vice,
so long as the great spring of vice and crime flowed as deep and strong as ever?
Was it not a practical waste of beautiful lives for these young women to throw themselves
into this earthly hell, when for every soul rescued by their sacrifice the saloon made two
more that needed rescue?
He could not escape the question. It was the same that Virginia had put to Rachel in her
statement that, in her opinion, nothing really permanent would ever be done until the saloon
was taken out of the Rectangle. Henry Maxwell went back his parish work that afternoon
with added convictions on the license business.
But if the saloon was a factor in the problem of the life of Raymond, no less was the First
Church and its little company of disciples who had pledged to do as Jesus would do. Henry
Maxwell, standing at the very center of the movement, was not in a position to judge of its
power as some one from the outside might have done. But Raymond itself felt the touch in
very many ways, not knowing all the reasons for the change.
The winter was gone and the
year was ended -- the year which Henry Maxwell had fixed as the time during which the
pledge should be kept to do as Jesus would do. Sunday, the anniversary of that one a year
ago, was in many ways the most remarkable day that the First Church ever knew. It was
more important than the disciples in the First Church realized. The year had made history so fast
and so serious that the people were not yet able to grasp its significance. And the day itself
which marked the completion of a whole year of such discipleship was characterized by such
revelations and confessions that the immediate actors in the events themselves could not
understand the value of what had been done, or the relation of their trial to the rest of the
churches and cities of the country.
It happened that the week before that anniversary Sunday, the Rev. Calvin Bruce, D.D., of
the Nazareth Avenue Church, Chicago, was in Raymond, where he had come on a visit to
some old friends and incidentally to see his old seminary classmate, Henry Maxwell. He
was present at the First Church and was an exceedingly attentive and interested spectator.
His account of the events in Raymond, and especially of that Sunday, may throw more light
on the entire situation than any description or record from other sources.
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