his parishioner.
"What are you going to do?" Henry Maxwell asked after they had
talked over the facts in the case.
"You mean another position? 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. Henry Maxwell did not need to ask him
how the wife and daughter felt. He knew well enough that the
superintendent had suffered deepest at that point.
"There is one matter I wish you would see to," said Powers after
awhile, "and that is, the work begun at the shops. So far as I know,
the company will not object to that going on. It is one of the
contradictions of the railroad world that Y. M. C. A.'s and other
Christian influences are encouraged by the roads, while all the time
the most un-Christian and lawless acts may be committed in the
official management of the roads themselves. Of course it is well
understood that it pays a railroad to have in its employ men who are
temperate, honest and Christian. So I have no doubt the master
mechanic will have the same courtesy shown him in the use of the
room. But what I want you to do, Mr. Maxwell, is to see that my plan
is carried out. Will you? You understand what it was in general. You
made a very favorable impression on the men. Go down there as often
as you can. Get Milton Wright interested to provide something for
the furnishing and expense of the coffee plant and reading tables.
Will you do it?"
"Yes," replied Henry Maxwell. He stayed a little longer. Before he
went away, he and the superintendent had a prayer together, and they
parted with that silent hand grasp that seemed to them like a new
token of their Christian discipleship and fellowship.
The pastor of the First Church went home stirred deeply by the
events of the week. Gradually the truth was growing upon him that
the pledge to do as Jesus would was working out a revolution in his
parish and throughout the city. Every day added to the serious
results of obedience to that pledge. Maxwell did not pretend to see
the end. He was, in fact, only now at the very beginning of events
that were destined to change the history of hundreds of families not
only in Raymond but throughout the entire country. As he 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 t
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