arty's
preacher-plans, and Marty believed implicitly in the wisdom of J.W.'s
understood purpose to be a forthright Christian layman.

But it was not all plain sailing for J.W. Nobody bothered Marty; he was
going into the ministry, and that settled that. Among the students who
went in for religious work were several who could not quite share
Marty's complacence over J.W.'s program. They thought it strange that so
active a Christian, with the right stuff in him, as everybody
recognized, should not declare himself for some religious vocation.

And from time to time men came to college--bishops, secretaries,
specialists--to talk to the students about this very thing. There was a
student volunteer band, in which were enrolled all the students looking
to foreign mission work. The prospective preachers had a club of their
own, and there was even a little organized group of boys and girls who
thought seriously of social service in some form or another as a career.

Now, J.W., before the end of sophomore year, had come to know all, or
nearly all, of these young enthusiasts. Some of them developed into
staunch and satisfying friends. If he had run with the sport crowd,
which was always looking for recruits, or if he had been merely a hard
student, working for Phi Beta Kappa, he might have been let alone. But,
without being able to wear an identifying label, he yet belonged with
those who had come to college with a definite life purpose.

Just because nobody seemed to realize that being a Christian in business
could be as distinct a vocation as any, J.W. was at times vaguely
troubled, in spite of his confident stand at the Institute. He wondered
a little at what he had almost come to feel was his callousness. Not
that he was uninterested; for Marty he had vast unspoken ambitions which
would have stunned that unsuspecting youth if they had ever become
vocal; and he never tired of the prospects which opened up before his
other friends. He kept up an intermittent correspondence with Joe
Carbrook, and found himself thinking much about the strange chain of
circumstances which promised to make a medical missionary out of Joe. He
more than suspected that Joe and Marcia Dayne were vastly interested in
each other's future, and he got a lot of satisfaction out of that. They
would have a great missionary career.

No; he was not unfeeling about all these high purposes of the boys and
girls he knew; and if he could just get a final answer