His prayers were unlike any the people had heard before. They
were often broken, even once or twice they had been actually
ungrammatical in a phrase or two. When had Henry Maxwell so far
forgotten himself in a prayer as to make a mistake of that sort? He
knew that he had often taken as much pride in the diction and
delivery of his prayers as of his sermons. Was it possible he now so
abhorred the elegant refinement of a formal public petition that he
purposely chose to rebuke himself for his previous precise manner of
prayer? It is more likely that he had no thought of all that. His
great longing to voice the needs and wants of his people made him
unmindful of an occasional mistake. It is certain that he had never
prayed so effectively as he did now.

There are times when a sermon has a value and power due to
conditions in the audience rather than to anything new or startling
or eloquent in the words said or arguments presented. Such
conditions faced Henry Maxwell this morning as he preached against
the saloon, according to his purpose determined on the week before.
He had no new statements to make about the evil influence of the
saloon in Raymond. What new facts were there? He had no startling
illustrations of the power of the saloon in business or politics.
What could he say that had not been said by temperance orators a
great many times? The effect of his message this morning owed its
power to the unusual fact of his preaching about the saloon at all,
together with the events that had stirred the people. He had never
in the course of his ten years' pastorate mentioned the saloon as
something to be regarded in the light of an enemy, not only to the
poor and tempted, but to the business life of the place and the
church itself. He spoke now with a freedom that seemed to measure
his complete sense of conviction that Jesus would speak so. At the
close he pleaded with the people to remember the new life that had
begun at the Rectangle. The regular election of city officers was
near at hand. The question of license would be an issue in the
election. What of the poor creatures surrounded by the hell of drink
while just beginning to feel the joy of deliverance from sin? Who
could tell what depended on their environment? Was there one word to
be said by the Christian disciple, business man, citizen, in favor
of continuing the license to crime and shame-producing institutions?
Was not the most Christian thing they could do to a