Jesus Christ. They
all had some idea of His character, and however much they had grown
bitter toward the forms of Christian ecclesiasticism or the social
system, they preserved some standard of right and truth, and what
little some of them still retained was taken from the person of the
Peasant of Galilee.

So they were interested in what Maxwell said. "What would Jesus do?"
He began to apply the question to the social problem in general,
after finishing the story of Raymond. The audience was respectfully
attentive. It was more than that. It was genuinely interested. As
Mr. Maxwell went on, faces all over the hall leaned forward in a way
seldom seen in church audiences or anywhere except among workingmen
or the people of the street when once they are thoroughly aroused.
"What would Jesus do?" Suppose that were the motto not only of the
churches but of the business men, the politicians, the newspapers,
the workingmen, the society people--how long would it take under
such a standard of conduct to revolutionize the world? What was the
trouble with the world? It was suffering from selfishness. No one
ever lived who had succeeded in overcoming selfishness like Jesus.
If men followed Him regardless of results the world would at once
begin to enjoy a new life.

Maxwell never knew how much it meant to hold the respectful
attention of that hall full of diseased and sinful humanity. The
Bishop and Dr. Bruce, sitting there, looking on, seeing many faces
that represented scorn of creeds, hatred of the social order,
desperate narrowness and selfishness, marveled that even so soon
under the influence of the Settlement life, the softening process
had begun already to lessen the bitterness of hearts, many of which
had grown bitter from neglect and indifference.

And still, in spite of the outward show of respect to the speaker,
no one, not even the Bishop, had any true conception of the feeling
pent up in that room that night. Among those who had heard of the
meeting and had responded to the invitation were twenty or thirty
men out of work who had strolled past the Settlement that afternoon,
read the notice of the meeting, and had come in out of curiosity and
to escape the chill east wind. It was a bitter night and the saloons
were full. But in that whole district of over thirty thousand souls,
with the exception of the saloons, there was not a door open except
the clean, pure Christian door of the Settlement. Where would a man
w