said J.W., Sr. "We had all been brought up on the
Uniform Lessons, and most of us thought they were just right. Besides,
we rather enjoyed thinking of ourselves as keeping step with the whole
Sunday school world--all over the wide earth everybody studying the same
scripture on the same Sunday. And that was a big idea to get into the
minds of Christians of every name everywhere."

"Yes, but, Dad," put in J.W., "what was the good of it if the lessons
didn't fit everybody? Did people think that the kids in the primary and
their mothers in ma's class ought to study the same lesson? or did they
think they could fit the same lesson to everybody by the different notes
they put into the Quarterlies?"

"Well, son," his father replied, "I reckon we thought both ways. And I'm
not so sure yet that it can't be done. But if one thing more than
another reconciled me to the Graded Lessons, it was that they made being
a Sunday school teacher a good deal bigger job than it had ever been. It
was harder work, because every lesson had to be studied by the teacher,
and in a different way from what was thought good enough in the old
days. And I'm for anything, Graded Lessons or whatever, that'll make
people take Sunday school teaching more seriously."

Then Mrs. Farwell ventured to take up the story. It was about that time,
in the very beginning of the Drury pastorate, that J.W. joined the
church on probation; much to her surprise and humbling.

"I hadn't even thought of it," she said, "though I should have been the
first one. He had been getting ready in the Junior League, as I very
well knew, but one day, as you may remember"--Brother Drury did, for
that day was the real beginning of this story--"you made an invitation
at the end of a real simple sermon, and if J.W., Jr., didn't get right
up from my side and walk straight to the front!"

After that there had been a probationers' class, with J.W. and perhaps
twenty others meeting the pastor every week for straight religious
teaching, so that at Easter, when they came up for membership, what with
their Sunday school and Junior League training, and what with the
pastor's more personal instruction, they were able to pass a pretty fair
examination on the great Christian truths, and on the general scheme of
the church's work.

"For a time mother was a trifle disappointed that J.W. hadn't waited for
the big revival we had the next year," said J.W., Sr., "but I think she
was glad afterward."