CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 9
Henry Maxwell finished reading and dropped the paper. “I must go and see Powers. This is the result of his promise.”
Maxwell walked over to the next block where Superintendent Powers lived. To his relief, Powers himself came to the door.
The two men shook hands silently. They instantly understood each other without words. “What are you going to do?” Henry Maxwell asked after they had talked over the facts in the case.
“I have no plans yet. I can go back to my old work as a telegraph operator. My family will not suffer, except in a social way.”
Powers spoke calmly and sadly. “There is one matter I wish you would see to—the work begun at the shops. So far as I know, the company will not object to that going on. Will you see that my plan is carried out?”
“Yes,” replied Henry Maxwell. Before he went away, he and the superintendent had a prayer together.
As Maxwell thought of Edward Norman and Rachel and Mr. Powers, and of the results that had already come from their actions, he could not help a feeling of intense interest in the probable effect if all the persons in the First Church who had made the pledge faithfully kept it. The next morning the president of the Endeavor Society of his church called to see him.
“I thought,” said young Morris, coming at once to his errand, “that you might advise me a little. I’ve been doing reporter work on the morning Sentinel since I graduated last year. Well, last Saturday Mr. Burr asked me to go down the road Sunday morning and get the details of that train robbery at the Junction and write the thing up for the extra edition that came out Monday morning. I refused to go, and Burr gave me my dismissal.”
“You kept your promise, Fred.”
“Thank you, Mr. Maxwell.”
Morris rose to go, and his pastor rose and laid a loving hand on the young man’s shoulder.
“What are you going to do, Fred?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Why don’t you try the News?”
“They are all supplied.”
Maxwell thought a moment. “Come down to the News office with me, and let us see Norman about it.”
So a few minutes later, Edward Norman greeted the minister and young Morris, and Maxwell briefly told the cause of the errand.
Norman’s keen gaze was softened by a smile that made it winsome. “I want reporters who won’t work Sundays. In fact, I am making plans for a special kind of reporting that I believe you can develop because you are in sympathy with what Jesus would do.”
He assigned Morris a definite task, and Maxwell started back to his study.
On his way home he passed by one of Milton Wright’s stores. He thought he would simply step in and shake hands with his parishioner and bid him Godspeed in what he had heard he was doing to put Christ into his business. But when he went into the office, Wright insisted on detaining him to talk over some of his new plans. “There is no use to disguise the fact, Mr. Maxwell, that I’ve been compelled to revolutionize the entire method of my business since I made that promise. I came down here Monday morning after that Sunday and asked myself, ‘What would Jesus do in His relation to these clerks, bookkeepers, office boys, day men, salesmen? Would He try to establish some sort of personal relation to them different from that which I have sustained all these years?’ Then came the question of what that relation would be and what it would lead me to do. I did not see how I could answer it to my satisfaction without getting all my employees together and having a talk with them. So I sent invitations to all of them, and we had a meeting out there in the warehouse Tuesday night. A good many things came out of that meeting. I kept asking, ‘What would Jesus do?’ and the more I asked it, the further along it pushed me into the most intimate and loving relations with the men who have worked for me all these years. Every day something new is coming up, and I am right now in the midst of a reconstruction of the motive for conducting business.”
Wright eagerly reached up into one of the pigeonholes of his desk and took out a paper.
“I have sketched out what seems to me like a program such as Jesus might go by in a business like mine.” He handed the paper to Maxwell.
Henry Maxwell read it over slowly.
What Jesus Would Probably Do in Milton Wright’s Place as a Businessman
1. The primary purpose of the business is glorifying God.
2. He would never regard the money He made as His own.
3. His relations with all the persons in His employ would be the most loving and helpful.
4. He would never do a single dishonest or questionable thing or try to get the advantage of anyone else.
5. The principle of unselfishness and helpfulness in the business would direct all its details.
Maxwell looked up and met Wright’s gaze. “Do you believe you can continue to make your business pay on these lines?”
“I do.”
“Does your plan contemplate what is coming to be known as cooperation?”
“Yes, as far as I have gone, it does. I am working on those general principles. I must have time to complete the details.”
When Maxwell finally left, he was profoundly impressed with the revolution at work in the business. There was no mistaking the fact that Milton Wright’s new relations to his employees were beginning to transform the entire business in a very short time. When Maxwell reached his study, he prayed. Then he began the preparation of a sermon on the subject of the saloon in Raymond, as he now believed Jesus would do.
He had never preached against the saloon before. Nevertheless, he went on with his work, and every sentence he wrote or shaped was preceded with the question, “Would Jesus say that?”
The meetings in the Rectangle had intensified with each night, much of it due to Rachel’s singing. It cannot be said that up to that Saturday night there was any appreciable lack of oaths and impurity and heavy drinking. But in spite of itself, there was a yielding to a power it had never measured and did not know well enough to resist beforehand.
Gray had recovered his voice so that by Saturday he was able to speak. Gradually the people had come to understand that this man gave his time and strength to give them a knowledge of a Savior out of a perfectly unselfish love for them. Tonight the great crowd was as quiet as Henry Maxwell’s decorous audience ever was. The fringe around the tent was deeper and the saloons were practically empty. The Holy Spirit had come at last, and Gray knew that one of the great prayers of his life was going to be answered.
Rachel’s singing was the best that Virginia or Jasper Chase had ever known. They came together again tonight, this time with Dr. West. Virginia was at the organ, Jasper sat on a front seat looking up at Rachel, and the Rectangle swayed as one body toward the platform as she sang:
“Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.”
Gray stretched out his hand with a gesture of invitation. And down the two aisles of the tent, broken, sinful creatures, men and women, stumbled toward the platform. One woman out of the street was near the organ. Virginia caught the look on her face, and for the first time the thought of what Jesus was to the sinful woman came to her with a suddenness and power that was like nothing but a new birth. Virginia left the organ, went to her, looked into her face, and caught her hands in her own. The other girl trembled, then fell on her knees sobbing, with her head down upon the back of the rude bench in front of her, still clinging to Virginia. And Virginia, after a moment’s hesitation, knelt down by her, and the two heads were bowed close together.
When the people had crowded in a double row all about the platform, most of them kneeling and crying, a man in evening dress pushed through the seats and came and knelt down within a few feet of Rachel Winslow, who was still singing softly. And as she turned for a moment and looked in his direction, for a moment her voice faltered. Rollin Page! Then she went on:
“Just as I am, Thou wilt receive,
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve,
Because Thy promise I believe,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.”