J.W. must make a hurried journey to Saint Louis to turn in his report to Peter McDougall, which report Peter was much better prepared to receive than J.W. suspected.  And a highly satisfactory arrangement was made for J.W.’s continued connection with the Cummings Hardware Corporation.

Doubtless all weddings are much alike in their ceremonial aspects; short or long, solemn-spoken ancient ritual or commonplace legal form, the essence of them all is that this man and this woman say, “I will.”  So it was in Walter Drury’s study.  And then the little group seated itself about the pastor; Marty with Alma Wetherell, soon to become Mrs. Marty; all the Shenks, the elder Farwells, John Wesley, Jr., and Jeannette.  The dinner would not be for an hour yet, and this was the pastor’s time.

Pastor Drury could not talk much.  He had kept his chair as he read the ritual, and now he sat and smiled quietly on them all.  But once and again his eye sought J.W. and the look was a question yet unanswered.

“What sort of a voyage home did you have?” Mrs. Farwell asked her son, motherlike, using even a query about the weather to turn attention to her boy.

“A good voyage, mother,” said J.W.  “A fine voyage.  But one day—­will you let me tell it here, all of you?  I’ve hardly been any more eager for my wedding day than for a chance to say this.  I won’t tire you, Mr. Drury, will I?”

“You’ll never do that, my boy,” said the preacher.  “But don’t bother about me, I’ve long had a feeling that what you are going to say will be better for me than all the doctors.”  For he had seen the eager glow on J.W.’s face, and his heart was ready to be glad.

Thus it was that J.W. told the story of his great moment; how he had talked with Miss Morel one morning of the many-sided work of the church, and how in the afternoon he had looked through the open port of his stateroom and had seen an ocean that looked like the church, and a church that seemed like the ocean.

“I shall remember that day forever, I think,” he said.  “For the first time in my life I could put all the pieces of my life together; my home, my church, the Sunday school, the League, college, the needy life of this town, your country work, Marty, Mexico, China, India—­everything; and I could see as one wonderful, perfect picture, every bit of it necessary to all the rest.  Our church at work to make Jesus Christ Lord of all life, in my home and clear to the ‘roof of the world’ out yonder under the snows of Tibet.  Can you see it, folks?  I think you always could, Mr. Drury!” and he put his hand affectionately on the pastor’s knee.

Pastor Drury’s face was even paler than its wont, but in his eyes glowed the light that never was on sea or land.  He was hearing what sometimes he had feared he might not last long enough to hear.  The Experiment was justified, and he was comforted!

He picked up the Bible that lay near his hand, and turned to the Gospel by Luke.  “I hope none of you will think I wrest the Book’s words to lesser meanings,” he said, “but there is only one place in it that can speak what is in my heart to-day.”  And he read the song of Simeon in the temple:  “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation,” and so to the end.