Part 2 (1/2)
”Well, at first I thought they were all away ahead of our bunch at home, and some of them are; but you soon find out that the majority is pretty much of the same sort as ours. I think I've spotted a few slackers, but mighty few. Most of the crowd seems to be all right, and I've already made some real friends. But do you know which one of them all is the most interesting fellow I've met?”
The pastor thought he did, but he merely asked, ”Who?”
”Why, that Greek boy, Phil Khamis. He is from Salonika, you know. He knows the old country like a book, and he's going back some day, maybe to be some kind of missionary to his people, in the very places where the apostle Paul preached. Honest, I never knew until he told me that his Salonika is the town of those Christians to whom Paul wrote two of his letters; those to the Thessalonians--'Thessalonika,' you know. Well, you ought to hear Phil talk. He came over here seven years ago, and learned the English language from the preacher at Westvale.”
”Yes, I have heard about him,” said Mr. Drury. ”They say he lived in the parsonage and paid the preacher for his English lessons by giving him a new understanding of the Greek New Testament. Not many of us have found out yet how to get such pay for being decent to our friends from the other side.”
”Well, he is a thoroughbred, anyway; and do you notice how he is right up in front when there is anything doing? The only way you can tell he isn't American born is that he is so anxious to help out on all the unpleasant work. When I look at Phil it makes me boil to think of fellows like him being called 'Wop.'”
By this time the two had swung back into the campus, and J.W. found himself drafted to hold down second base in the Faculty-Student ball game. But that is a story for others to tell.
On the steps of the library Marcia Dayne and some other girls were holding an informal reception. Joe Carbrook, with one or two of his friends, was finding it agreeable to a.s.sume a superior air concerning the Inst.i.tute. The impression the boys gave was that their coming to the Inst.i.tute at all had been a great concession, but that they were under no illusions about the place.
”All this is all right,” Joe was saying, ”for those who need it, but what's the good of it all to us? For instance, what do you get out of it, Marcia?”
”What do you think I want to get out of it? If you cared for the young people's work at home, I should think you could see how 'all this,' as you call it, would help you to do better work and more of it at Delafield.”
”As you ought to know pretty well, Marcia,” Joe replied, ”back home they think I don't care much for the young people's work. It is a little too prim and ready-to-wear for me, if you'll excuse me for saying so. No fun in it at all, though I'll admit some of the cla.s.ses here have more life in them than I looked for.”
One of the other girls, who knew him well enough to speak with large frankness, came to the defense of them all, saying: ”Well, Joe, I don't see that you get very far with what you call fun. It's mostly at the expense of other people, including your father, who pays the bills.
Besides, since you came home from college this spring, you seem to have run out of nearly all the bright ideas you started with. I wonder if it ever strikes you that being a sport, as you call it, is mostly being a nuisance to everybody? Some of us long ago got over thinking you clever and original. You must be getting over it yourself, by now, surely.”
”Many thanks, dear lady, for them kind words,” Joe responded, as he bowed low in mock acknowledgment; ”you make yourself quite plain, Miss Alma Wetherell.” He flung back the insult jauntily, as he and his companions moved on, but at least one of the group suspected that the words had struck home.
You who know the General Secretary could easily forgive J.W. his delight in the cla.s.s of which the program said the subject was ”Methods.” This is the only hour in an Inst.i.tute which the Epworth League takes for its own work. Rightly enough, it is a crowded hour, with the whole Inst.i.tute present, and usually it is an hour of unflagging interest.
J.W. and Marty were enjoying their first Inst.i.tute too much to be late at any cla.s.ses. They were merely a little earlier at this cla.s.s; to miss any of it would be a distinct loss.
Now, what the General Secretary talked about was no more than the everyday work of the League--how it meant the young people of the church and their work for and with young people for the sake of the future. But he had a way with him. He said the League was a great scheme of self, with the ”ish” left off. In the League one practiced self-help, and enjoyed the twin luxuries of self-direction and self-expression, and came sooner or later to that strange new knowledge which is self-discovery. He explained how Epworthians as such could live on twenty-four hours a day, the plan being an ingenious and yet simple financial arrangement for keeping the League work moving, both where you are and where you aren't, even around the world. He had innumerable stories of the devotional meeting idea, the Win-My-Chum idea, the stewards.h.i.+p idea, the Inst.i.tute idea, the life service idea, the recreation idea, the study-cla.s.s idea, and every other League idea so far invented.
But all this is merely a hint of what the General Secretary meant to the Inst.i.tute, and particularly to the delegates from Delafield. Even Joe Carbrook had been impressed. He heard the General Secretary the morning after that little exchange of compliments on the library steps, and for an hour thereafter let himself enjoy the rare luxury of thinking. The results were somewhat disconcerting.
”It's funny,” said Marty, as the four of them, the other three being Joe, Marcia, and J.W., sat under a tree in the afternoon, ”but I believe that man could make even trigonometry interesting. I thought I'd heard all that could be said about the devotional meeting; but did you get that scheme for leaders he sprung this morning? Watch me when we get back home, that's all.”
”You needn't suppose you are the only one who got it,” said Marcia.
”Everybody was trying to watch the General Secretary and to take notes at the same time, and I don't believe you are any quicker at that than the rest of us. Of course all of us will use as many of his ideas as we can remember, when we get home again.”
Joe Carbrook, with a new seriousness which sat awkwardly on him, confessed that he could not understand just what was happening. It was evident that he was ill at ease; Marcia had noticed it every time she had seen him since that encounter with Alma Wetherell.
”I guess you folks know I am not easily caught; but I'm ready to admit that man has hold of something. Yes, and I'm half convinced that this Inst.i.tute has hold of something. I wish I knew what it is. If I could really believe that all I hear and see at this place is part of being young and part of being a Christian, I might be thinking before long about getting into the game myself. The trouble is you three and the other Leaguers I've watched at home are just you three and the others, and that's all. I know, and you know, what you can do. You'll take all these ideas of League work and use them, maybe; but what I can't see is how you will pick up the Big Idea of this place and get back home without losing it.”
”We can't,” said Marcia, ”not without all sorts of help, visible and invisible. You, for instance; if you would really get into the game, as you say, n.o.body could guess how much it would mean to our League. And it might mean more to you.”
”Marcia's right about that,” said J.W. ”The Big Idea of this place, that you speak of, is a lot too big for us to take home alone. Maybe you'll think I'm preaching, but I don't care, if I say that for G.o.d to handle alone, it is not big enough. He makes the stars, and gives us his Son, without any help from us. n.o.body else can do that. But he won't make our League at home a success without us; and all of us together can't do it without Him. I'm not saying I know how to do it, even then, but that's the way it looks to me. Why, Joe,” he said with sudden intensity as he faced Joe Carbrook, ”if you ever get hold of the Big Idea, and the Big Idea gets hold of you, something is sure to happen, something bigger than any of us can figure out now. I know you have it in you.”
All four showed a surprised self-consciousness over J.W.'s unexpected venture into these rather deeper conversational waters than usual, and there was more surprise when Joe Carbrook began to talk about himself.
He laughed to hide a touch of embarra.s.sment, but with little mirth; and then he said, ”Well, J.W., that's not all foolishness, though I don't see why you should pick on me. Why not Marty? Of course, I came here for fun, and I have had some, though not just the sort I expected. And I've had several jolts too. I might as well admit that if I could just only see how you hitch all of this League and church business to real life, I would be for it with all I've got. The trouble is, while I've never been especially proud of my own record, neither have I seen much excuse yet for what you 'active members' have been busy with. I have been playing my way, and you have been playing yours; but it all seems mostly play to me. All the same, I guess I am getting tired of my kind.” If Joe could ever have spoken wistfully, you might have suspected him of it just then.
Clearly, thought Marcia Dayne, in the silence that followed, something big was already happening. But how to help it on she could not tell; so, with a desperate effort to do the right thing, she contrived to turn the subject It seemed to her it had become too difficult to go further just now without peril to Joe's strange new interest, as well as to a very new and tremulous little hope that had begun to sing in her own heart.
The s.h.i.+ft of the talk was a true Inst.i.tute change, and would have been most disconcerting to anyone unfamiliar with the ways of young Christians; but Marcia was sure that what had been said would not be forgotten, and she knew there would be another time.