larger work--at least, they were ready
to be made ready. All they needed was light and leading. This I undertook
to give. I told them my vision of the Larger Parish. I held it up before
them continually, preaching it on the Sabbath, and talking about it in
the prayer-meeting. I described the situation as it had been revealed to
me in my apostolic tramps. From week to week I could see the kindling
flame of enthusiasm in the congregation. There was evidently a rising tide
of interest in the wider work. The people began to see the reasonableness
of it. They began to feel some sense of responsibility for it, some joy
and hope as the possibility of doing it began to dawn upon them.

I believe that the rank and file of our churches are more ready to march
forth to larger service than most of us have thought. There is really more
willingness to take up new tasks and to engage in aggressive enterprises
than they have had credit for. The people want something to do. They want
a work that is worth while. Many churches are languishing for a job which
they may apprehend and accept--for something large enough and difficult
enough to challenge their powers and kindle their enthusiasm. And when a
proposition is made to them that seems sane and sensible, when they can
have confidence in their leaders, they are generally ready to fall in line
and to march forward with firm and steady tread. That was the case with
this particular church, and they have stood behind the work of the Larger
Parish from the first in solid phalanx. There have been no kickers, no
knockers. In all this work I have had the satisfaction of knowing that the
people were with me. They have been helpers all the way and not hinderers.

3. But how should we begin? How can we move out into this Larger Parish
and get hold of this greater work? In some way we must be something to all
these people. We must find a way by which the church may make itself felt
as a force in all these five hundred homes. But how? Well, I began to
hold services in the schoolhouses around. I could at least hold one
meeting a week in these out-stations in addition to my regular duties.
That seemed a very small beginning, but it was a beginning. It was the
entering wedge to the larger work that followed. On Wednesday nights some
of my people would take me to these more distant points, where I was
almost invariably greeted by a good and attentive congregation. I had no
conveyance of my own, and of t