Part 4 (1/2)

It was Marty who put their purpose into the fewest words. ”We, and the others who have been to the Inst.i.tute, don't think we know every little League thing,” said he, ”and we don't think we are the whole League either. But every time anybody in our Chapter starts anything good, he's going to have more and better help than he ever had before.”

Which thing came to pa.s.s, as may one day be recorded. The Rev. Walter Drury kept his own counsel, but he knew that more had happened than the putting of new life into the League. The Experiment had progressed safely through some most difficult stages.

CHAPTER II

JOHN WESLEY, JR.'S BRINGING UP

Those words of Phil Khamis at Morning Watch kept popping into J.W.'s head in the days following the Inst.i.tute--”Everything I have to-day has come to me by the goodness of Christian people.”

”I know that must be true,” he would say to himself, ”but it's worth tracing back.”

The preacher was coming over to supper one night, as he loved to do; and J.W. made up his mind to bring Phil's idea into the table talk. He was on even better terms with the preacher than he used to be.

J.W.'s mother hadn't said much about the Inst.i.tute, though she had listened eagerly to all his talk of the crowded week, and she was vaguely ill at ease. She had hoped for something, she did not know just what, from the Inst.i.tute, and she was not yet sure whether she ought to feel disappointed.

But she provided a fine supper, to which the menfolk paid the most practical and sincere of all compliments. And since n.o.body had anything else on for the evening, there was plenty of time for talk.

The mother had a moment aside with the minister, and there was a touch of anxiety in her question: ”Do you think the Inst.i.tute helped my boy?”

And the pastor had just time to whisper back, ”It helped him much, but he gave even more help than he got You have reason to be proud of him. I am. He's growing.”

It was not very definite, but it brought no small comfort to the mother's heart.

”This Inst.i.tute idea seems to be everywhere,” said J.W., Sr., to the pastor, ”but how did it get started? I used to be in the Epworth League, but we had nothing like it then.”

”That's not so very much of a story,” said the pastor. ”We have the Inst.i.tute idea because we had to have it. And so the League gave it form and substance.”

”Well,” J.W., Jr., chimed in, ”I think it's about time more people knew about it. I've wanted to ask you to explain it ever since we came back from the Inst.i.tute.”

The pastor nodded. ”I know; but remember even you were not really interested until you had been at an Inst.i.tute. Do you think our Inst.i.tute just happened, J.W.?”

”I know it didn't,” J.W. replied. ”Somebody did a lot of planning and scheming.”

”Yes,” returned the pastor, ”but did you notice that a large part of its work touched subjects familiar to you, the local League activities, for instance--the devotional meeting, and Mission Study, and stewards.h.i.+p, and the scope of the business meeting which not so long ago elected you to members.h.i.+p?”

”Yes, you're right, though I don't see anything remarkable in that. It was a League Inst.i.tute, wasn't it?”

”Certainly. But still, if there had not been any local Chapter, there could have been no Inst.i.tute, don't you see? What I mean is that the Inst.i.tute came because your Chapter needed it, and you needed it; not because the Inst.i.tute needed you. It's merely a matter of tracing things back.”

J.W., Jr., thought of Phil's words. ”Sure enough,” he responded, ”tracing things back makes a lot of difference. I've been going over what Phil Khamis said at the Morning Watch--you remember? How everything he has to-day has come to him by the goodness of Christian people. At first I thought that was no more than a description of his particular case, because I knew how true it was. But when you begin to trace things back, as you say, what's true about Phil is true about all of us--anyway, about me.”

”How is that, son?” Mrs. Farwell asked gently.

”Well, I mean,” J.W. smilingly answered her, though flus.h.i.+ng a little too, ”the Inst.i.tute, that seemed to me something new and different, is really tied up to what you folks and the whole church have been doing for me as far back as I can remember.”

And so they talked, parents and pastor and J.W., quite naturally and freely, of the long chain of interest which had linked his life to the church's life, back through all the years to his babyhood.

J.W. had been in the League only a year or two, but it seemed to him that he had been in the church always. And the memories of his boyhood which had the church for center, were intimately interwoven with all his other experiences.

As his father said, ”I guess, pastor, if you tried to take out of J.W.'s young life all that the church has meant to him, it would puzzle a professor to explain whatever might be left.”