Christian fiction; Clergy -- Fiction; Jesus Christ -- Influence -- Fiction
WHEN Henry Maxwell began to speak to the souls crowded into the
Settlement Hall that night it is doubtful if he ever faced such an
audience in his life. It is quite certain that the city of Raymond
did not contain such a variety of humanity. Not even the Rectangle
at its worst could furnish so many men and women who had fallen
entirely out of the reach of the church and of all religious and
even Christian influences.
What did he talk about? He had already decided that point. He told
in the simplest language he could command some of the results of
obedience to the pledge as it had been taken in Raymond. Every man
and woman in that audience knew something about Jesus Christ. They
all had some idea of His character, and however much they had grown
bitter toward the forms of Christian ecclesiasticism or the social
system, they preserved some standard of right and truth, and what
little some of them still retained was taken from the person of the
Peasant of Galilee.
So they were interested in what Maxwell said. "What would Jesus do?"
He began to apply the question to the social problem in general,
after finishing the story of Raymond. The audience was respectfully
attentive. It was more than that. It was genuinely interested. As
Mr. Maxwell went on, faces all over the hall leaned forward in a way
seldom seen in church audiences or anywhere except among workingmen
or the people of the street when once they are thoroughly aroused.
"What would Jesus do?" Suppose that were the motto not only of the
churches but of the business men, the politicians, the newspapers,
the workingmen, the society people--how long would it take under
such a standard of conduct to revolutionize the world? What was the
trouble with the world? It was suffering from selfishness. No one
ever lived who had succeeded in overcoming selfishness like Jesus.
If men followed Him regardless of results the world would at once
begin to enjoy a new life.
Maxwell never knew how much it meant to hold the respectful
attention of that hall full of diseased and sinful humanity. The
Bishop and Dr. Bruce, sitting there, looking on, seeing many faces
that represented scorn of creeds, hatred of the social order,
desperate narrowness and selfishness, marveled that even so soon
under the influence of the Settlement life, the softening process
had begun already to lessen the bitterness of hearts, many of which
had grown bitter from neglect and indifference.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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