Then his mind set to work again on that motley procession of pictures which he had likened to a patchwork film.  Was it as disjointed as it seemed?  Could it not be so put together as to make a true continuity, consistent and complete?

Why not?  In the events of his own life, strangely enough, he had the clue to its right arrangement.  By what seemed to be accidental or incidental opportunity it had been his singular fortune to come in contact with some aspect or another of all the work his church was doing.  And every element of it, from the beginners’ class at Delafield to the language school at Nanking, from the college social in First Church to the celebration at Foochow—­it was all New Testament work.  Its center was always Jesus Christ’s teaching or example, or appeal.  There was in its complexity a vast simplicity; each was a part of all, and all was in each.

“John Wesley Farwell, Jr.,” said that young man to himself, “this thing is not your discovery—­but how does that bit of Keats’ go?”

’Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
   When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes
   He stared at the Pacific—­and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise—­
   Silent, upon a peak in Darien,’

There you have it!  But I might have known.  Cortez, if it was Cortez, could not have guessed the Pacific.  He had nothing to suggest it.  But I might have guessed the singleness of the church’s work.  What is my name for, unless I can appreciate the man who said ‘The world is my parish,’ and who would do anything—­sell books, keep a savings bank, open a dispensary—­for the sake of saving souls?  That’s the single idea, the simple idea.  It makes all these queer activities part of one great activity; and rests them all on one under-girding truth—­’The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord.’

But the wonderful thing to me is that, after all this time, I should suddenly have found this out for myself!

“What a story to take home to Delafield!  Pastor Drury is going to have the surprise of his life!”

* * * * *

Three people met J.W. as his train pulled in to the station at Delafield.  The other two were his father and mother.

After the first tearfully happy greetings, J.W. looked around the platform.  “I rather thought Brother Drury might have come too,” he said.

The others exchanged meaning glances, and his father asked, “Then you didn’t get my second letter at San Francisco?”

“No,” said J.W., in vague alarm, “only the one.  What’s wrong?  Is Mr. Drury—­”

“He’s at home now, son,” said the elder Farwell, gravely.  “He came home from our Conference hospital at Hillcrest two weeks ago.  We hope he’s going to gain considerable strength, but he’s had some sort of a stroke, we don’t rightly know what, and he’s pretty hard hit.  He’s better than he was last week, but he can’t leave his room; sits in his easy chair and doesn’t say much.”