ut his
remark set me to thinking.

A week later, in another town, speaking one morning to the students of a
young ladies' seminary, I said afterwards to one of the teachers as we
were talking: "I suppose your young women here are all christians." That
same quizzical look came into her eye as she said: "I think they are
all members of church, but I do not think they are all christians with
real power in their lives." There was that same odd distinction.

A few weeks later, in Kansas City visiting the medical and dental
schools, I recall distinctly standing one morning in a disordered
room--shavings on the floor, desks disarranged--the institution just
moving into new quarters, and not yet settled. I was discussing with a
member of the faculty, the dean I think, about how many the room would
hold, how soon it would be ready, and so on--just a business talk,
nothing more--when he turned to me rather abruptly, looking me full in
the face, and said with quiet deliberation: "I'm a member of church; I
_think_ I am a deacon in our church"--running his hand through his hair
meditatively, as though to refresh his memory--"but I am not very much
of a christian, sir." The smile that started to come to my face at the
odd frankness of his remark was completely chased away by the distinct
touch of pathos in both face and voice that seemed to speak of a hungry,
unsatisfied heart within.

Perhaps it was a month or so later, in one of the mining towns down in
the zinc belt of southwestern Missouri, I was to speak to a meeting of
men. There were probably five or six hundred gathered in a Methodist
Church. They were strangers to me. I was in doubt what best to say to
them. One dislikes to fire ammunition at people that are absent. So
stepping down to a front pew where several ministers were seated, I
asked one of them to run his eye over the house and tell me what sort of
a congregation it was, so far as he knew them. He did so, and presently
replied: "I think fully two-thirds of these men are members of our
churches"--and then, with that same quizzical, half-laughing look, he
added, "but you know, sir, as well as I do, that not half of them are
christians worth counting." "Well," I said to myself, astonished, "this
is a mining camp; this certainly is not anything like the condition of
affairs in the country generally."

But that series of incidents, coming one after the other in such rapid
succession, set me thinking intently about th