"What
is that to thee? Follow thou me."
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 club men,
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 for 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
displays 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 of 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 and crime 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 to 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 centre 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.
