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Henry Maxwell finished reading and dropped the paper.
"I must go and see Powers. This is the result of his promise."
He rose, and as he was going out, his wife said:
"Do you think, Henry, that Jesus would have done that?"
Maxwell paused a
moment. Then he answered slowly:
"Yes, I think He would. At any rate, Powers
has decided so, and each one of us who made the promise understands that he is
not deciding Jesus' conduct for any one else, only for himself."
"How about his family? How will Mrs. Powers and Celia be likely to take it?"
"Very hard, I have no doubt. That will be Powers' cross in this matter. They
will not understand his motive."
Maxwell went out and walked over to the next block, where Superintendent Powers
lived. To his relief, Powers himself came to the door.
The two men shook hands silently. They instantly understood each other, without
words. There had never before been such a bond of union between the minister
and his parishioner.
"What are you going to do?" Henry Maxwell asked after they had talked over the
facts in the case.
"You mean another position? I have no plans yet. I can go back to my old work
as a telegraph operator. My family will not suffer except in a social way."
Powers spoke calmly and sadly. Henry Maxwell did not need to ask him how the
wife and daughter felt. He knew well enough that the superintendent had
suffered deepest at that point.
"There is one matter I wish you would see to," said Powers after awhile, "and
that is, the work begun at the shops. So far as I know, the company will not
object to that going on. It is one of the contradictions of the railroad world that Y.M.C.A.'s and
other Christian influences are encouraged by the roads, while all the time the
most un-Christian and lawless acts may be committed in the official management
of the roads themselves. Of course it is well understood that it pays a
railroad to have in its employ men who are temperate, honest and Christian. So
I have no doubt the master mechanic will have the same courtesy shown him in
the use of the room. But what I want you to do, Mr. Maxwell, is to see that my
plan is carried out. Will you? You understand what it was in general. You made
a very favorable impression on the men. Go down there as often as you can. Get
Milton Wright interested to provide something for the furnishing and expense of
the coffee plant and reading tables. Will you do it?"
"Yes," replied Henry Maxwell. He stayed a little longer. Before he went away,
he and the Superintendent had a prayer together, and they parted with that
silent hand grasp that seemed to them like a new token of their Christian
discipleship and fellowship.
The pastor of the First Church went home stirred deeply by the events of the
week. Gradually the truth was growing upon him that the pledge to do as Jesus
would was working out a revolution in his parish and throughout the city. Every
day added to the serious results of obedience to that pledge. Maxwell did not
pretend to see the end. He was, in fact, only now at the very beginning of
events that were destined to change the history of hundreds of families not
only in Raymond but throughout the entire country. As he thought of Edward
Norman and Rachel and Mr. Powers, and of the results that had already come
from their actions, he could not help a feeling of intense interest in the
probable effect, if all the persons in the First Church who had made the pledge
faithfully kept it. Would they all keep it, or would some of them turn back
when the cross became too heavy?
He was asking this question the next morning, as he sat in his study, when the President of the Endeavor Society of his church called to
see him.
"I suppose I ought not to trouble you with my case," said young Morris coming
at once to his errand, "but I thought, Mr. Maxwell, that you might advise me a
little."
"I'm glad you came. Go on, Fred." He had known the young man ever since his
first year in the pastorate, and loved and honored him for his consistent,
faithful service in the church.
"Well, the fact is, I am out of a job. You know I've been doing reporter work
on the 'Morning Sentinel' since I graduated last year. Well, last Saturday Mr.
Burr asked me to go down the road Sunday morning and get the details of that
train robbery at the Junction, and write the thing up for the extra edition
that came out Monday morning, just to get the start of the 'News.' I refused to
go, and Burr gave me my dismissal. He was in a bad temper, or I think perhaps
he would not have done it. He has always treated me well before. Now, do you
think Jesus would have done as I did? I ask because the other fellows say I was
a fool not to do the work. I want to feel that a Christian acts from motives
that may seem strange to others sometimes, but not foolish. What do you think?"
"I think you kept your promise, Fred. I cannot believe Jesus would do
newspaper work on Sunday as you were asked to do it."
"Thank you, Mr. Maxwell. I felt a little troubled over it, but the longer I
think it over the better I feel."
Morris rose to go, and his pastor rose and laid a loving hand on the young
man's shoulder.
"Where are you going to go, Fred?"
"I don't know yet. I have thought some of going to Chicago, or some large
city."
"Why don't you try the 'News'?"
"They are all supplied. I have not thought of applying there."
Maxwell thought a moment.
"Come down to the 'News' office with me, and let us see
Norman about it."
So, a few minutes later, Edward Norman received into his room the minister and
young Morris, and Maxwell briefly told the cause of the errand.
"I can give you a place on the 'News,'" said Norman with his keen look softened
by a smile that made it winsome. "I want reporters who won't work Sundays. And
what is more, special kind of reporting which I believe you can develop because
you are in sympathy with what Jesus would do."
He assigned Morris a definite task, and Maxwell started back to his study,
feeling that kind of satisfaction (and it is a very deep kind) which a man
feels when he has been even partly instrumental in finding an unemployed person
a remunerative position.
He had intended to go right to his study, but on his way home he passed by one
of Milton Wright's stores. He thought he would simply step in and shake hands
with his parishioner and bid him God-speed in what he had heard he was doing to
put Christ into his business. But when he went into the office, Wright insisted
on detaining him to talk over some of his new plans. Maxwell asked himself if
this was the Milton Wright he used to know, eminently practical, business-like,
according to the regular code of the business world, and viewing every thing
first and foremost from the standpoint of "Will it pay?"
"There is no use to disguise the fact, Mr. Maxwell, that I have be compelled to
revolutionize the entire method of my business since I made that promise. I have
been doing a great many things, during the last twenty years in this store, that
I know that Jesus would not do. But that is a very small item compared with the number of things I begin to believe Jesus would do. My sins of commission have not as many as those
of omission in business relations."
"What was the first change you made?" He felt as if his sermon could wait for him in his study. As the interview with Milton Wright
continued, he was not so sure but that he had found material for a sermon
without going back to his study.
"I think the first change I had to make was in
my thought of my employees. I came down here Monday morning after that Sunday
and asked myself, 'What would Jesus do in His relation to these clerks,
bookkeepers, office boys, draymen. salesmen? Would He try to establish some
sort of personal relation to them different from that which I have sustained
all these years?' I soon answered this by saying, Yes. Then came the question
of what that relation would be and what it would lead me to do. I did not see
how I could answer it to my satisfaction without getting all my employees
together and having a talk with them. So I sent invitations to all of them,
and we had a meeting out there in the warehouse Tuesday night.
A good many
things came out of that meeting. I can't tell you all. I tried to talk with the
men as I imagined Jesus might. It was hard work, for I have not been in the
habit of it, and must have made some mistakes. But I can hardly make you
believe, Mr. Maxwell, the effect of that meeting on some of the men. Before it
closed, I saw more than a dozen of them with tears on their faces. I kept asking,
'What would Jesus do?' and the more I asked it the farther along it pushed me
into the most intimate and loving relations with the men who have worked for me
all these years. Every day something new is coming up, and I am right now in the midst of a
reconstructing of the entire business, so far as its motive for being conducted
is concerned. I am so practically ignorant of all plans for co-operation and
its application to business that I am trying to get information from every
possible source. I have lately made a special study of the life of Titus
Salt,the great mill owner of Bradford, England, who afterwards built that model
town on the banks of the Aire. There is a good deal in his plans that will help
me. But I have not yet reached definite conclusions in regard to all the
details. I am not enough used to Jesus' methods. But see here."
Wright eagerly reached up into one of the pigeon holes of his desk and took out
a paper.
"I have sketched out what seems to me like a programme such as Jesus might go by
in a business like mine. I want you to tell me what you think of it:
WHAT JESUS WOULD PROBABLY DO IN
MILTON WRIGHT'S PLACE AS A BUSINESS MAN.
1. He would engage in the business first of all for the purpose of glorifying
God, and not for the primary purpose of making money.
2. All money that might be made he would never regard as his own, but as trust
funds to be used for the good of humanity.
3. His relations with all the persons in his employ would be the most loving
and helpful. He could not help thinking of all of them in the light of souls to
be saved. This thought would always be greater than his thought of making money
in the business.
4. He would never do a single dishonest or questionable thing or try in any
remotest way to get the advantage of any one else in the same business.
5. The principle of unselfishness and helpfulness in the business would direct
all its details.
6. Upon this principle he would shape the entire plan of his relations to his
employees, to the people who were his customers, and to the general business
world with which he was connected.
Henry Maxwell read this over slowly. It reminded him of his own attempts the
day before to put into a concrete form his thought of Jesus' probable action.
He was very thoughtful as he looked up and met Wright's eager gaze.
"Do you believe you can continue to make your business pay on these lines?"
"I do. Intelligent unselfishness ought to be wiser than intelligent
selfishness, don't you think? If the men who work as employees begin to feel a
personal share in the profits of the business, and, more than that, a personal
love for themselves on the part of the firm, won't the result be more care,
less waste, more diligence, more faithfulness?"
"Yes, I think so. A good many other business men don't, do they? I mean as a general thing. How about your relations to the selfish world
that is not trying to make money on Christian principles?"
"That complicates my action, of course."
"Does your plan contemplate what is coming to be known as co-operation?"
"Yes, as far as I have gone, it does. As I told you, I am studying out my
details carefully. I am absolutely convinced that Jesus in my place would be
absolutely unselfish. He would love all these men in his employ. He would
consider the main purpose of all the business to be a mutual helpfulness, and
would conduct it all so that God's kingdom would be evidently the first object
sought. On those general principles, as I say, I am working. I must have time
to complete the details."
When Maxwell finally left he was profoundly impressed with the revolution that
was being wrought already in the business. As he passed out of the store he
caught something of the new spirit of the place. There was no mistaking the
fact that Milton Wright's new relations to his employees were beginning, even
so soon, after less than two weeks, to transform the entire business. This was
apparent in the conduct and faces of the clerks.
"If he keeps on, he will be one of the most influential preachers in Raymond,"
said Henry Maxwell to himself when he reached his study. The question rose as to his
continuance in this course when he began to lose money by it, as was possible.
He prayed that the Holy Spirit, who had shown Himself with growing power in the
company of First Church disciples, might abide long with them all. And with
that prayer on his lips and in his heart he began the preparation of a sermon
in which he was going to present to his people on Sunday the subject of the
saloon in Raymond, as he now believed Jesus would do. He had never preached
against the saloon in this way before. He knew that the things he should say
would lead to serious results. Nevertheless, he went on with his work, and every sentence he wrote or shaped was preceded with the question, "Would
Jesus say that?" Once in the course of his study, he went down on his knees. No
one except himself could know what that meant to him. When had he done that in
his preparation of sermons, before the change that had come into his thought
of discipleship? As he viewed his ministry now, he did not dare preach without
praying long for wisdom. He no longer thought of his dramatic delivery and its
effect on his audience. The great question with him now was, "What would Jesus
do?"
Saturday night at the Rectangle witnessed some of the most remarkable scenes
that Mr. Gray and his wife had ever known. The meetings had intensified with
each night of Rachel's singing. A stranger passing through the Rectangle in
the day-time might have heard a good deal about the meetings in one way and
another. It cannot be said that up to that Saturday night there was any
appreciable lack of oaths and impurity and heavy drinking. The Rectangle would
not have acknowledged that it was growing any better or that even the singing
had softened its outward manner. It had too much local pride in being "tough."
But in spite of itself there, was a yielding to a power it had never measured
and did not know well enough to resist beforehand.
Gray had recovered his voice so that by Saturday he was able to speak. The
fact that he was obliged to use his voice carefully made it necessary for the
people to be very quiet if they wanted to hear. Gradually they had come to
understand that this man was talking these many weeks, and giving his time
and strength, to give them a knowledge of a Saviour, all out of a perfectly
unselfish love for them. To-night the great crowd was as quiet as Henry
Maxwell's decorous audience ever was. The fringe around the tent was deeper and
the saloons were practically empty. The Holy Spirit had come at last, and Gray
knew that one of the great prayers of his life was going to be answered.
And Rachel -- her singing was the best, most wonderful, that Virginia or Jasper
Chase had ever known. They came together again tonight, this time with Dr.
West, who had spent all his spare time that week in the Rectangle with some
charity cases. Virginia was at the organ, Jasper sat on a front seat looking up
at Rachel, and the Rectangle swayed as one man towards the platform as she
sang:
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