ght
it over afterwards, "I do not want any of you to credit me with an
act of great generosity. I have come to know lately that the money
which I have called my own is not mine, but God's. If I, as steward
of His, see some wise way to invest His money, it is not an occasion
for vainglory or thanks from any one simply because I have proved in
my administration of the funds He has asked me to use for His glory.
I have been thinking of this very plan for some time. The fact is,
dear friends, that in our coming fight with the whiskey power in
Raymond--and it has only just begun--we shall need the NEWS to
champion the Christian side. You all know that all the other papers
are for the saloon. As long as the saloon exists, the work of
rescuing dying souls at the Rectangle is carried on at a terrible
disadvantage. What can Mr. Gray do with his gospel meetings when
half his converts are drinking people, daily tempted and enticed by
the saloon on every corner? It would be giving up to the enemy to
allow the NEWS to fail. I have great confidence in Mr. Norman's
ability. I have not seen his plans, but I have the same confidence
that he has in making the paper succeed if it is carried forward on
a large enough scale. I cannot believe that Christian intelligence
in journalism will be inferior to un-Christian intelligence, even
when it comes to making the paper pay financially. So that is my
reason for putting this money--God's, not mine--into this powerful
agent for doing as Jesus would do. If we can keep such a paper going
for one year, I shall be willing to see that amount of money used in
that experiment. Do not thank me. Do not consider my doing it a
wonderful thing. What have I done with God's money all these years
but gratify my own selfish personal desires? What can I do with the
rest of it but try to make some reparation for what I have stolen
from God? That is the way I look at it now. I believe it is what
Jesus would do."

Over the lecture-room swept that unseen yet distinctly felt wave of
Divine Presence. No one spoke for a while. Mr. Maxwell standing
there, where the faces lifted their intense gaze into his, felt what
he had already felt--a strange setting back out of the nineteenth
century into the first, when the disciples had all things in common,
and a spirit of fellowship must have flowed freely between them such
as the First Church of Raymond had never before known. How much had
his church membership known of this