Christian fiction; Clergy -- Fiction; Jesus Christ -- Influence -- Fiction
But it was a little after the love story of the Settlement became a
part of its glory that Henry Maxwell of Raymond came to Chicago with
Rachel Winslow and Virginia Page and Rollin and Alexander Powers and
President Marsh, and the occasion was a remarkable gathering at the
hall of the Settlement arranged by the Bishop and Dr. Bruce, who had
finally persuaded Mr. Maxwell and his fellow disciples in Raymond to
come on to be present at this meeting.
There were invited into the Settlement Hall, meeting for that night
men out of work, wretched creatures who had lost faith in God and
man, anarchists and infidels, free-thinkers and no-thinkers. The
representation of all the city's worst, most hopeless, most
dangerous, depraved elements faced Henry Maxwell and the other
disciples when the meeting began. And still the Holy Spirit moved
over the great, selfish, pleasure-loving, sin-stained city, and it
lay in God's hand, not knowing all that awaited it. Every man and
woman at the meeting that night had seen the Settlement motto over
the door blazing through the transparency set up by the divinity
student: "What would Jesus do?"
And Henry Maxwell, as for the first time he stepped under the
doorway, was touched with a deeper emotion than he had felt in a
long time as he thought of the first time that question had come to
him in the piteous appeal of the shabby young man who had appeared
in the First Church of Raymond at the morning service.
Was his great desire for fellowship going to be granted? Would the
movement begun in Raymond actually spread over the country? He had
come to Chicago with his friends partly to see if the answer to that
question would be found in the heart of the great city life. In a few
minutes he would face the people. He had grown very strong and calm
since he first spoke with trembling to that company of workingmen
in the railroad shops, but now as then he breathed a deeper prayer
for help. Then he went in, and with the rest of the disciples he
experienced one of the great and important events of the earthly life.
Somehow he felt as if this meeting would indicate something of an
answer to his constant query: "What would Jesus do?" And to-night as he
looked into the faces of men and women who had for years been strangers
and enemies to the Church, his heart cried out: "O, my Master, teach
the Church, Thy Church, how to follow Thy steps better!" Is that prayer
of Henry Maxwell's to be answered? Will the Church in the city respond
to the call to follow Him? Will it choose to walk in His steps of pain
and suffering? And still, over all the city broods the Spirit. Grieve
Him not, O city! For He was never more ready to revolutionize this
world than now!
Chapter Thirty
"Now, when Jesus heard these things, He said unto him, Yet lackest
thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the
poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow Me."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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