“Oh, yes, I can well believe that, Mr. Farwell,” Miss Morel hastened to say.  “I think work for the immigrant is so very interesting, don’t you?  But, of course, that’s not quite what I meant.  The usual dull things that churches do, you know.”

“Well, take another instance that I happen to remember,” J.W. had a touch of the sort of feeling he used to delight in at Cartwright, when he was gathering his material for a debate.  “My first summer after leaving college, a few of us in First Church got busy studying our own town.  We found two of the general church boards ready to help us with facts and methods.  The Home Missions people gave us one sort of help, and another board, with the longest name of them all, the Board of Temperance, Prohibition, and Public Morals, showed us how to go about an investigation of the town’s undesirable citizens and their influence.  It is in that sort of business for all of us, you know.”

“That must have been exciting,” said Miss Morel.  “I know I should enjoy such work.  What did you find out, and what could you do about it?”

That was a question not to be glibly answered, J.W. knew.  But he meant to be fair about it.  “We found out plenty that surprised us; a great deal,” he added, “that ought to be done, and much more that needed to be changed.  We even went so far as to draw up a sort of civic creed, ’The Everyday Doctrines of Delafield,’ The town paper printed it, and it was talked about for a while, but probably we were the people who got the most out of it; it showed us what we church members might mean to the town.  And that was worth something.”

Miss Morel was sure it was.  But she came back to her first idea about the home churches.  “Don’t you think that much of the preaching, and all that, is pretty dull and tiresome?  I came from a little country church, and it was so dreary.”

J.W. thought of Deep Creek, and said, “I know what you mean; but even the country church is improving.  I must tell you some time about Marty, my chum.  He’s a country preacher, helped in his training by the Rural Department of the Home Missions Board, and his people come in crowds to his preaching.  Country churches are waking up, and the Board people at Philadelphia have had a lot to do with it.”

“Well, I’m glad.  But anyway, home missions is rather commonplace, haven’t you noticed?” and Miss Morel looked almost as though she were asking a question of state.

“I can’t say I’ve found it so,” J.W. said, stoutly, “I was some time learning, but I ran into a lot of experiences before I left home.  Take the work for colored people, for instance.  I had to make a speech at a convention, and I found out that our church has a Board of Education for Negroes which is doing more than any other agency to train Negro preachers and teachers and home makers, and doctors and other leaders.  That’s not so very commonplace, would you say so?”

“Well, no,” the young lady admitted.  “It is very important work, of course; and I’d dearly love to have a share in it.  I am a great believer in the colored races, you know.  But you are making me begin to think I am all wrong about the church at home.  I don’t mean to belittle it.  Perhaps I appreciate it more than I realized.  Anyway, tell me something else that you have found out.”