s Norman insisted,
that money alone could not make the paper a power. It must receive
the support and sympathy of the Christians in Raymond before it
could be counted as one of the great forces of the city.

The week that followed this Sunday meeting was one of great
excitement in Raymond. It was the week of the election. President
Marsh, true to his promise, took up his cross and bore it manfully,
but with shuddering, with groans and even tears, for his deepest
conviction was touched, and he tore himself out of the scholarly
seclusion of years with a pain and anguish that cost him more than
anything he had ever done as a follower of Christ. With him were a
few of the college professors who had made the pledge in the First
Church. Their experience and suffering were the same as his; for
their isolation from all the duties of citizenship had been the
same. The same was also true of Henry Maxwell, who plunged into the
horror of this fight against whiskey and its allies with a sickening
dread of each day's new encounter with it. For never before had he
borne such a cross. He staggered under it, and in the brief
intervals when he came in from the work and sought the quiet of his
study for rest, the sweat broke out on his forehead, and he felt the
actual terror of one who marches into unseen, unknown horrors.
Looking back on it afterwards he was amazed at his experience. He
was not a coward, but he felt the dread that any man of his habits
feels when confronted suddenly with a duty which carries with it the
doing of certain things so unfamiliar that the actual details
connected with it betray his ignorance and fill him with the shame
of humiliation.

When Saturday, the election day, came, the excitement rose to its
height. An attempt was made to close all the saloons. It was only
partly successful. There was a great deal of drinking going on all
day. The Rectangle boiled and heaved and cursed and turned its worst
side out to the gaze of the city. Gray had continued his meetings
during the week, and the results had been even greater than he had
dared to hope. When Saturday came, it seemed to him that the crisis
in his work had been reached. The Holy Spirit and the Satan of rum
seemed to rouse up to a desperate conflict. The more interest in the
meetings, the more ferocity and vileness outside. The saloon men no
longer concealed their feelings. Open threats of violence were made.
Once during the week Gray and his little com