a humility that poured its enthusiasm about the truth
and made the speaker no more prominent than he had
to be as the living voice of God. His prayers
were unlike any the people had heard before. They
were often broken, even once or twice they had been
actually ungrammatical in a phrase or two. When
had Henry Maxwell so far forgotten himself in a prayer
as to make a mistake of that sort? He knew that
he had often taken as much pride in the diction and
delivery of his prayers as of his sermons. Was
it possible he now so abhorred the elegant refinement
of a formal public petition that he purposely chose
to rebuke himself for his previous precise manner of
prayer? It is more likely that he had no thought
of all that. His great longing to voice the needs
and wants of his people made him unmindful of an occasional
mistake. It is certain that he had never prayed
so effectively as he did now.
There are times when a sermon has a value and power
due to conditions in the audience rather than to anything
new or startling or eloquent in the words said or
arguments presented. Such conditions faced Henry
Maxwell this morning as he preached against the saloon,
according to his purpose determined on the week before.
He had no new statements to make about the evil influence
of the saloon in Raymond. What new facts were
there? He had no startling illustrations of the
power of the saloon in business or politics.
What could he say that had not been said by temperance
orators a great many times? The effect of his
message this morning owed its power to the unusual
fact of his preaching about the saloon at all, together
with the events that had stirred the people. He
had never in the course of his ten years’ pastorate
mentioned the saloon as something to be regarded in
the light of an enemy, not only to the poor and tempted,
but to the business life of the place and the church
itself. He spoke now with a freedom that seemed
to measure his complete sense of conviction that Jesus
would speak so. At the close he pleaded with
the people to remember the new life that had begun
at the Rectangle. The regular election of city
officers was near at hand. The question of license
would be an issue in the election. What of the
poor creatures surrounded by the hell of drink while
just beginning to feel the joy of deliverance from
sin? Who could tell what depended on their environment?
Was there one word to be said by the Christian disciple,
business man, citizen, in favor of continuing the
license to crime and shame-producing institutions?
Was not the most Christian thing they could do to act
as citizens in the matter, fight the saloon at the
polls, elect good men to the city offices, and clean
the municipality? How much had prayers helped
to make Raymond better while votes and actions had
really been on the side of the enemies of Jesus?
Would not Jesus do this? What disciple could
imagine Him refusing to suffer or to take up His cross
in this matter? How much had the members of the
First Church ever suffered in an attempt to imitate
Jesus? Was Christian discipleship a thing of
conscience simply, of custom, of tradition? Where
did the suffering come in? Was it necessary in
order to follow Jesus’ steps to go up Calvary
as well as the Mount of Transfiguration?
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