te or too feebly, lay with a
weight of accusation upon the heart of the editor. What if he had
begun to do as Jesus would have done, long ago? Who could tell what
might have been accomplished by this time! And up in the choir,
Rachel Winslow, with her face bowed on the railing of the oak
screen, gave way to a feeling which she had not allowed yet to
master her, but it so unfitted her for her part that when Mr.
Maxwell finished and she tried to sing the closing solo after the
prayer, her voice broke, and for the first time in her life she was
obliged to sit down, sobbing, and unable to go on.
Over the church, in the silence that followed this strange scene,
sobs and the noise of weeping arose. When had the First Church
yielded to such a baptism of tears? What had become of its regular,
precise, conventional order of service, undisturbed by any vulgar
emotion and unmoved by any foolish excitement? But the people had
lately had their deepest convictions touched. They had been living
so long on their surface feelings that they had almost forgotten the
deeper wells of life. Now that they had broken the surface, the
people were convicted of the meaning of their discipleship.
Mr. Maxwell did not ask, this morning, for volunteers to join those
who had already pledged to do as Jesus would. But when the
congregation had finally gone, and he had entered the lecture-room,
it needed but a glance to show him that the original company of
followers had been largely increased. The meeting was tender; it
glowed with the Spirit's presence; it was alive with strong and
lasting resolve to begin a war on the whiskey power in Raymond that
would break its reign forever. Since the first Sunday when the first
company of volunteers had pledged themselves to do as Jesus would
do, the different meetings had been characterized by distinct
impulses or impressions. Today, the entire force of the gathering
seemed to be directed to this one large purpose. It was a meeting
full of broken prayers of contrition, of confession, of strong
yearning for a new and better city life. And all through it ran one
general cry for deliverance from the saloon and its awful curse.
But if the First Church was deeply stirred by the events of the last
week, the Rectangle also felt moved strangely in its own way. The
death of Loreen was not in itself so remarkable a fact. It was her
recent acquaintance with the people from the city that lifted her
into special promin
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