overflowing with what I have seen and heard that I feel driven to
write you now some account of the situation in Raymond as I have
been studying it, and as it has apparently come to a climax today.
So this is my only excuse for writing so extended a letter at this
time.

"You remember Henry Maxwell in the Seminary. I think you said the
last time I visited you in New York that you had not seen him since
we graduated. He was a refined, scholarly fellow, you remember, and
when he was called to the First Church of Raymond within a year
after leaving the Seminary, I said to my wife, 'Raymond has made a
good choice. Maxwell will satisfy them as a sermonizer.' He has been
here eleven years, and I understand that up to a year ago he had
gone on in the regular course of the ministry, giving good
satisfaction and drawing good congregations. His church was counted
the largest and wealthiest church in Raymond. All the best people
attended it, and most of them belonged. The quartet choir was famous
for its music, especially for its soprano, Miss Winslow, of whom I
shall have more to say; and, on the whole, as I understand the
facts, Maxwell was in a comfortable berth, with a very good salary,
pleasant surroundings, a not very exacting parish of refined, rich,
respectable people--such a church and parish as nearly all the young
men of the seminary in our time looked forward to as very desirable.

"But a year ago today Maxwell came into his church on Sunday
morning, and at the close of the service made the astounding
proposition that the members of his church volunteer for a year not
to do anything without first asking the question, 'What would Jesus
do?' and, after answering it, to do what in their honest judgment He
would do, regardless of what the result might be to them.

"The effect of this proposition, as it has been met and obeyed by a
number of members of the church, has been so remarkable that, as you
know, the attention of the whole country has been directed to the
movement. I call it a 'movement' because from the action taken
today, it seems probable that what has been tried here will reach
out into the other churches and cause a revolution in methods, but
more especially in a new definition of Christian discipleship.

"In the first place, Maxwell tells me he was astonished at the
response to his proposition. Some of the most prominent members in
the church made the promise to do as Jesus would. Among them were
Edward