lost hundreds of subscribers by that action, although I have made
satisfactory arrangements with many of the old subscribers by giving
them even more in the extra Saturday edition than they formerly had
in the Sunday issue. My greatest loss has come from a falling off in
advertisements, and from the attitude I have felt obliged to take on
political questions. The last action has really cost me more than
any other. The bulk of my subscribers are intensely partisan. I may
as well tell you all frankly that if I continue to pursue the plan
which I honestly believe Jesus would pursue in the matter of
political issues and their treatment from a non-partisan and moral
standpoint, the NEWS will not be able to pay its operating expenses
unless one factor in Raymond can be depended on."

He paused a moment and the room was very quiet. Virginia seemed
specially interested. Her face glowed with interest. It was like the
interest of a person who had been thinking hard of the same thing
which Norman went on to mention.

"That one factor is the Christian element in Raymond. Say the NEWS
has lost heavily from the dropping off of people who do not care for
a Christian daily, and from others who simply look upon a newspaper
as a purveyor of all sorts of material to amuse or interest them,
are there enough genuine Christian people in Raymond who will rally
to the support of a paper such as Jesus would probably edit? or are
the habits of the church people so firmly established in their
demand for the regular type of journalism that they will not take a
paper unless it is stripped largely of the Christian and moral
purpose? I may say in this fellowship gathering that owing to recent
complications in my business affairs outside of my paper I have been
obliged to lose a large part of my fortune. I had to apply the same
rule of Jesus' probable conduct to certain transactions with other
men who did not apply it to their conduct, and the result has been
the loss of a great deal of money. As I understand the promise we
made, we were not to ask any question about 'Will it pay?' but all
our action was to be based on the one question, 'What would Jesus
do?' Acting on that rule of conduct, I have been obliged to lose
nearly all the money I have accumulated in my paper. It is not
necessary for me to go into details. There is no question with me
now, after the three weeks' experience I have had, that a great many
men would lose vast sums of money u