"This is the first time I was ever in here, and may be it'll be the
last. Fact is, I am about at the end of my string. I've tramped this
city for work till I'm sick. I'm in plenty of company. Say! I'd like
to ask a question of the minister, if it's fair. May I?"

"That's for Mr. Maxwell to say," said the Bishop.

"By all means," replied Mr. Maxwell quickly. "Of course, I will not
promise to answer it to the gentleman's satisfaction."

"This is my question." The man leaned forward and stretched out a
long arm with a certain dramatic force that grew naturally enough
out of his condition as a human being. "I want to know what Jesus
would do in my case. I haven't had a stroke of work for two months.
I've got a wife and three children, and I love them as much as if I
was worth a million dollars. I've been living off a little earnings
I saved up during the World's Fair jobs I got. I'm a carpenter by
trade, and I've tried every way I know to get a job. You say we
ought to take for our motto, 'What would Jesus do?' What would He do
if He was out of work like me? I can't be somebody else and ask the
question. I want to work. I'd give anything to grow tired of working
ten hours a day the way I used to. Am I to blame because I can't
manufacture a job for myself? I've got to live, and my wife and my
children have got to live. But how? What would Jesus do? You say
that's the question we ought to ask."

Mr. Maxwell sat there staring at the great sea of faces all intent
on his, and no answer to this man's question seemed for the time
being to be possible. "O God!" his heart prayed; "this is a question
that brings up the entire social problem in all its perplexing
entanglement of human wrongs and its present condition contrary to
every desire of God for a human being's welfare. Is there any
condition more awful than for a man in good health, able and eager
to work, with no means of honest livelihood unless he does work,
actually unable to get anything to do, and driven to one of three
things: begging or charity at the hands of friends or strangers,
suicide or starvation? 'What would Jesus do?'" It was a fair
question for the man to ask. It was the only question he could ask,
supposing him to be a disciple of Jesus. But what a question for any
man to be obliged to answer under such conditions?

All this and more did Henry Maxwell ponder. All the others were
thinking in the same way. The Bishop sat there with a look so stern
and