CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 20
I want to tell you something of the meeting in the First Church today.
As I said, I heard Maxwell preach. His sermon this morning was as different from his sermon at the Association meeting four years ago as if it had been thought out and preached by someone living on another planet. I was profoundly touched. His text was “What is that to thee? Follow thou Me.” It was a most unusually impressive appeal to the Christians of Raymond to obey Jesus’ teachings and follow in His steps regardless of what others might do.
At the close of the service there was the usual after-meeting that has become a regular feature of the First Church. Into this meeting have come all those who made the pledge to do as Jesus would do, and the time is spent in mutual fellowship, confession, question as to what Jesus would do in special cases, and prayer that the one great guide of every disciple’s conduct may be the Holy Spirit.
Maxwell asked me to come into this meeting. I have never felt the Spirit’s presence so powerfully.
I asked questions. It is very evident that many of these disciples have repeatedly carried their obedience to Jesus to the extreme limit, regardless of financial loss. There is no lack of courage or consistency at this point.
It is also true that some of the businessmen who took the pledge have lost great sums of money in this imitation of Jesus and may have, like Alexander Powers, lost valuable positions owing to the impossibility of doing what they had been accustomed to do and at the same time what they felt Jesus would do in the same place. Those who still have means have helped those who have suffered in this way. In this respect these disciples have all things in common.
I never dreamed that such Christian fellowship could exist in this age of the world. I was almost skeptical as to the witness of my own senses. I still seem to be asking myself if this is the close of the nineteenth century in America.
But now, dear friend, I come to the real cause of this letter, the real heart of the whole question as the First Church of Raymond has forced it upon me. Before the meeting closed today, steps were taken to secure the cooperation of all other Christian disciples in this country. I think Maxwell took this step after long deliberation. The idea crystallized today in a plan to secure the fellowship of all the Christians in America. The churches, through their pastors, will be asked to form disciple gatherings like the one in the First Church. They will call for volunteers in the great body of church members in the United States, who will promise to do as Jesus would do.
Maxwell spoke particularly of the result of such general action on the saloon question. He is terribly in earnest over this. He told me that there was no question in his mind that the saloon would be beaten in Raymond at the election now near at hand. If so, they could go on with some courage to do the redemptive work begun by the evangelist and now taken up by the disciples in his own church. He convinced his church that the time had come for a fellowship with other Christians.
This is a grand idea, Caxton, but right here is where I find myself hesitating. I do not deny that the Christian disciple ought to follow Christ’s steps as closely as these here in Raymond have tried to do. But I cannot avoid asking what the result would be if I ask my church in Chicago to do it.
I am writing this after feeling the solemn, profound touch of the Spirit’s presence, and I confess to you, old friend, that I cannot call up in my church a dozen prominent business or professional men who would make this trial at the risk of all they hold dear.
The actual results of the pledge as obeyed here in Raymond are enough to make any pastor tremble, and at the same time long with yearning that they might occur in his own parish. Never have I seen a church so signally blessed by the Spirit as this one.
But—am I myself ready to take this pledge? I ask the question honestly, and I dread to face an honest answer. I know well enough that I should have to change very much in my life if I undertook to follow His steps so closely.
Shall I go back to my people next Sunday and stand up before them in my large city church and say, “Let us follow Jesus closer; let us walk in His steps where it will cost us something more than it is costing us now; let us pledge not to do anything without first asking: ‘What would Jesus do?’”
If I should go before them with that message, it would be a strange and startling one to them. But why? Are we not ready to follow Him all the way? What is it to be a follower of Jesus? What does it mean to imitate Him? What does it mean to walk in His steps?
The Reverend Calvin Bruce, DD, of the Nazareth Avenue Church, Chicago, let his pen fall on the table. He had come to the parting of the ways, and his question, he felt sure, was the question of many and many a person in the ministry and in the church. He went to his window and opened it. Oppressed with the weight of his convictions, he felt almost suffocated with the air in the room. He wanted to see the stars and feel the breath of the world.
The night was very still. The clock in the First Church struck midnight. As it finished, a clear, strong voice down in the direction of the Rectangle came floating up to him as if borne on radiant pinions.
“Must Jesus bear the cross alone
And all the world go free?
No, there’s a cross for everyone,
And there’s a cross for me.”
The Reverend Calvin Bruce turned away from the window, and after a little hesitation, he knelt. “What would Jesus do?” That was the burden of his prayer. Never had he yielded himself so completely to the Spirit of Jesus. He was on his knees a long time. He retired and slept fitfully with many awakenings. He rose before it was clear dawn and threw open his window again. As the light in the east grew stronger, he repeated to himself: “What would Jesus do? Shall I follow His steps?”
With this question throbbing through his whole being, Dr. Bruce went back to Chicago, and the great crisis in his Christian life in the ministry suddenly broke irresistibly upon him.