d to say
the other day, if you get the 'Big Idea' of the Institute, Christian
service looks like a great life. But me--I've no hope to be anything
particular; just one of the crowd. And I never quite saw until to-night
how that might be a great life too."
As they were parting, J.W. ventured a bold suggestion. "Say, Joe, if you
think you could be a doctor, _why not a missionary doctor?"_
Joe's answer was a swift turning on his heel, and he strode away with
never a word.
"Probably made him mad," thought J.W. "I wonder why I said it. Joe's the
last boy in the world to have any such notion. But--well, something's
already begun to happen to him, that's sure--and to me too."
On Sunday the little world of the Institute assumed a new and no less
attractive aspect. Everybody was dressed for Sunday, as at home. Classes
were over; and games also; the dining room became for the first time a
place of comparative quiet, with now and then the singing of a great old
hymn, just to voice the Institute consciousness.
The Morning Watch talk had been a little more direct, a little more
tense. And before the Bishop's sermon came the love feast. Now, the
Methodists of the older generation made much of their love feasts, but
in these days, except at the Annual Conference, an occasional Institute
is almost the only place where it flourishes with something of the
ancient fervor.
Many changes have come to Methodism since the great days of the love
feast; changes of custom and thought and speech. But your ardent young
Methodist of any period, Chaplain McCabe, Peter Cartwright, Jesse Lee,
Captain Webb, would have understood and gloried in this Institute love
feast. It spoke their speech.
Our group from Delafield will never forget it.
Nearly all of them spoke; Marcia Dayne first because she was usually
expected to lead in everything of the sort, then Marty, then J.W., and,
last of all and most astounding, Joe Carbrook.
Marty looked the soldier, and he put his confession into military terms.
He spoke about his Captain and waiting for orders, and a new
understanding of obedience.
Before J.W. got his chance to speak, the leader read a night letter from
an Institute far away, conveying the greetings of six hundred young
people to their fellow Epworthians.
J.W. could not bring himself to speak in terms of personal experience.
He was still under the spell of last night's camp fire, and his brief
encounter with Joe Carbrook, but wi
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