Not even all Methodist, by any means, J.W. perceived; and yet the fellowship among these strangers was very real. They spoke each other's tongue; they had common interests and common experiences. He told himself that here was a suggestion as to the new friends he might make in Delafield, without forgetting the old ones. And the prospect of life in Delafield began to take on new values. On the next Sunday night not so many college people were out to hear Mr. Drury's straight-thinking and plain-spoken sermon on "What our town asks of its college-trained youth"; and a few of those who came were inclined to resent what they called a lecture on manners and duty. But to J.W. the sermon was precisely the challenge to service he had been looking for. It made up for his feeling at commencement that he was "out of it." It completed all which Mr. Drury had suggested at the Institute camp fire four years ago, all that he himself had tried to say at the decision service on the day after the camp fire; all that the pastor had urged two years ago when J.W., Jr., confessed to him his new hesitations and uneasiness. The pastor had not preached any great thing. He had simply told the college folk in his audience that no matter where they had gone to school, many people had invested much in them, and that the investment was one which in its very nature could not be realized on by the original investors. The only possible beneficiaries were either the successive college generations or the communities in which they found their place. If they chose to take as personal and unconditional all the benefits of their education, none could forbid them that anti-social choice; but if they accepted education as a trust, a stewardship, something to be used for the common good, they would be worth more to Delafield than all the new factories the Chamber of Commerce could coax to the town. And to those who might be interested in this view of education, Pastor Drury said: "Young people of the colleges, you have been trained to some forms of laboratory work, in chemistry, in biology, in geology--yes, even in English. I invite you to think of your own town of Delafield as your living laboratory, in which you will be at once experimenters and part of the experiment stuff. Look at this town with all its good and evil, its dying powers and its new forces, its dullnesses and its enthusiasms, its folly and wisdom, its old ways and its new people, its wealth and want. Do you think it is already becoming a bit of the kingdom of God? Or, if you conclude that it seems to be going in ways that lead very far from the Kingdom, do you think it might possess any Kingdom possibilities? If you do, no matter what your occupation in Delafield, Delafield itself may be your true vocation, your call from God!" For John Wesley Farwell, Jr., it was to become all of that. CHAPTER IV EXPLORING MAIN STREET