“Yes,” Edward Norman spoke humbly.  “I shall make a great many mistakes, no doubt.  I need a great deal of wisdom.  But I want to do as Jesus would.  ‘What would He do?’ I have asked it, and shall continue to do so, and abide by the results.”

“I think we are beginning to understand,” said Virginia, “the meaning of that command, ’Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.’  I am sure I do not know all that He would do in detail until I know Him better.”

“That is very true,” said Henry Maxwell.  “I am beginning to understand that I cannot interpret the probable action of Jesus until I know better what His spirit is.  The greatest question in all of human life is summed up when we ask, ‘What would Jesus do?’ if, as we ask it, we also try to answer it from a growth in knowledge of Jesus himself.  We must know Jesus before we can imitate Him.”

When the arrangement had been made between Virginia an Edward Norman, he found himself in possession of the sum of five hundred thousand dollars to use for the establishment of a Christian daily paper.  When Virginia and Maxwell had gone, Norman closed his door and, alone with the Divine Presence, asked like a child for help from his all-powerful Father.  All through his prayer as he kneeled before his desk ran the promise, “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.”  Surely his prayer would be answered, and the kingdom advanced through this instrument of God’s power, this mighty press, which had become so largely degraded to the base uses of man’s avarice and ambition.

Two months went by.  They were full of action and of results in the city of Raymond and especially in the First Church.  In spite of the approaching heat of the summer season, the after-meeting of the disciples who had made the pledge to do as Jesus would do, continued with enthusiasm and power.  Gray had finished his work at the Rectangle, and an outward observer going through the place could not have seen any difference in the old conditions, although there was an actual change in hundreds of lives.  But the saloons, dens, hovels, gambling houses, still ran, overflowing their vileness into the lives of fresh victims to take the place of those rescued by the evangelist.  And the devil recruited his ranks very fast.

Henry Maxwell did not go abroad.  Instead of that, he took the money he had been saving for the trip and quietly arranged for a summer vacation for a whole family living down in the Rectangle, who had never gone outside of the foul district of the tenements.  The pastor of the First Church will never forget the week he spent with this family making the arrangements.  He went down into the Rectangle one hot day when something of the terrible heat in the horrible tenements was beginning to be felt, and helped the family to the station, and then went with them to a beautiful spot on the coast where, in the home of a Christian woman, the bewildered city tenants breathed for the first time in years the cool salt air, and felt blow about them the pine-scented fragrance of a new lease of life.