IN HIS STEPS - WHAT WOULD JESUS DO (EP2)

But Sunday morning dawned on the town of Raymond one of those perfect days that sometimes come after long periods of wind and rain and mud. The air was clear and bracing, the sky was free from all threatening signs, and every one in Henry Maxwell's parish prepared to go to church. When the service opened at eleven o'clock, the large building was filled with an audience of the best dressed, most comfortable looking people in Raymond.

      The First Church of Raymond believed in having the best music that money could buy and its quartette choir this morning was a great source of pleasure to the congregation. The anthem was inspiring. All the music was in keeping with the subject of the sermon. And the anthem was an elaborate adaptation to the most modern music, of the hymn,

"Jesus, I my cross have taken,

All to leave and follow thee."

    Just before the sermon, the soprano sang a solo, the well known hymn,

"Where He leads me I will follow, 

            I'll go with Him, with Him all the way."

    Rachel Winslow looked very beautiful that morning as she stood up behind the screen of carved oak which was significantly marked with the emblems of the cross and the crown. Her voice was even more beautiful than her face, and that meant a great deal. There was a general rustle of expectation over the audience as she rose. Henry Maxwell settled himself contentedly behind the pulpit. Rachel Winslow's singing always helped him. He generally arranged for a song before the sermon. It made possible a certain inspiration of feeling that he knew made his delivery more impressive. 

      People said to themselves they had never heard such singing even in the First Church. It is certain that if it had not been a church service, her solo would have been vigorously applauded. It even seemed to Henry Maxwell when she sat down that something like an attempted clapping of hands or a striking of feet on the floor swept through the church. He was startled by it. As he rose, however, and laid his sermon on the open Bible, he said to himself he had been deceived. Of course it could not occur. In a few moments he was absorbed in his sermon and everything else was forgotten in the pleasure of the delivery.        

       No one had ever accused Henry Maxwell of being a dull preacher. On the contrary he had often been charged with being sensational. Not in what he said so much as in his way of saying it. But the First Church people liked that. It gave their preacher and their parish a pleasant distinction that was agreeable.

      It was also true that the pastor of the First Church loved to preach. He seldom exchanged. He was eager to be in his own pulpit when Sunday came. There was an exhilarating half-hour for him as he stood facing a church full of people and knew that he had a hearing. He was peculiarly sensitive to variations in the attendance. He never preached well before a small audience. The weather also affected him decidedly. He was at his best before just such an audience as faced him now, on just such a morning. He

felt a glow of satisfaction as he went on. The church was the first in the city. It had the best choir. It had a membership composed of the leading people, representatives of the wealth, society and intelligence of Raymond. He was going abroad on a three months' vacation in the summer, and the circumstances of his pastorate, his influence and his position as pastor of the first church in the city. 

      It is not certain that the Kev. Henry Maxwell knew just how he could carry on all that thought in connection with His sermon, but as he drew near the end of it he knew that he had at some point in his delivery had all these feelings. They had entered into the very substance of his thought, " it might have been all in a few seconds of time; but he had been conscious of defining his position and his emotions as well as if he had held a soliloquy, and his delivery partook of the thrill of deep personal satisfaction.

     The sermon was interesting. It was full of striking sentences. They would have commanded attention printed. Spoken with the passion of a dramatic utterance that had the good taste never to offend with a suspicion of ranting or declamation, they were very effective. If the Rev. Henry Maxwell that morning felt satisfied with the conditions of

his pastorate, the parish of First Church also had a similar feeling as it congratulated itself on the presence in the pulpit of this scholarly, refined, somewhat striking face and figure, preaching with such animation and freedom from all vulgar, noise or disagreeable mannerism. 

       Suddenly, into the midst of this perfect accord and con- cord between preacher and audience, there came a very remarkable interruption.