“Maybe you’re right,” J.W. conceded, “and the church is not to be blamed.  Still, if our work for the black man has made him troublesome, and given him ideas bigger than he can hope to realize, how does that fit in with our Christianity?  Shouldn’t the church be a peacemaker, instead of a trouble-maker?”

“Now, John Wesley, Jr.,” the other said, in mock protest, “that sermon of mine on ‘Not Peace, but a Sword’ must have been wasted on you.  Our Lord most certainly came to make peace, and he spoke a great blessing on peacemakers.  But he was himself the world’s greatest disturber.  Peace while there is injustice, or ignorance, or any sort of wickedness, has nothing to do with Christ’s intentions.  I know that the old-time slave-traders of the North, and the more persistent slave-buyers of the South, were always asking for that sort of peace.  But they couldn’t have it.  Nobody ever can have it, so long as Jesus has a single follower in the world.”

“Well, what has all this to do,” asked J.W., “with our church’s special work for the colored people?”

“Ah, yes,” the pastor answered, “that’s the very thing you must find out before you make that address of welcome.”

By this time J.W. had gathered up a pile of books, pamphlets, reports, and papers—­enough, he thought, to serve as the raw material of a Ph.D. thesis, and he said to Mr. Drury, “Would you mind if I took this home?  I’ll bring it all back, and it’s not likely I’ll damage it much.”.

The asking was no more than a form; for years the people of First Church had known themselves freely welcome to any book in the preacher’s shelves.  An interest in his books was passport to his special favor.  His own evident love for books had been the best possible insurance that these particular borrowers would be more scrupulous than the general.  This bit of pastoral work, it should be said, with the frequent book-talk that grew out of it, was not least among all the reasons why First Church people thought their bachelor minister just the man for them.

So off went J.W. with his armful, and for a week thereafter you might have supposed he was cramming for a final exam of some sort.  Early in his preparation he decided that his father’s advice was wise, and he put the stress of his effort on the church’s work and how Negro youth had responded to it.  The other matter was too delicate, he felt, for his amateur handling, and, besides, he was not altogether sure even of his own position.

On the convention night Saint Marks was crowded with young colored people, some of whom came from places a hundred miles away.  They were badged and pennanted quite in the fashion to which J.W. was accustomed.  But for their color, and, to be frank, for a little more restraint and thoughtfulness in their really unusual singing, they were just young Methodists at a convention, not different from Caucasian Methodists of the same age.

When J.W.’s turn came to speak, the chairman introduced him in the fewest possible words, but with the courtesy which belongs to self-respect, saying, “Mr. Farwell will make the delegates welcome in the name of the First Church Epworthians.”