John Wesley, Jr. Part 12

"Oh, yes," Joe said understandingly, "I see now. You mean the t.i.the."

Marcia knew, no matter how, that Joe had begun to think about t.i.thing, and this seemed the opportune time to stress it a little more. It could help the Every Day Doctrines, and both Joe and J.W. were keen for that.

So Marcia admitted that she did mean the t.i.the. "I don't pretend to know how it began, any more than I know how real homes were established after the Fall, or how keeping Sunday began; I do know these began long before there was any fourth or fifth commandment, or any Children of Israel.

And I've gone over all the whole subject with Mr. Drury--he has a lot of practical pamphlets on the t.i.the. I believe that it is the easiest, surest, fairest and cheerfulest way of doing two Christian things at once--acknowledging G.o.d's owners.h.i.+p of all we have, and going into partners.h.i.+p with G.o.d in his work for the world, what the books sometimes call Christian Stewards.h.i.+p."

"I'd like to see those pamphlets," said J.W.

"It's queer you haven't seen them before this," said Marcia. "Mr. Drury has distributed hundreds of them. But maybe that was when you were away at Cartwright. Anyway, I'll get some for you."

Joe was holding his thought to the main matter. "Marcia," said he, "if you can make good on what you said just now, pamphlets or no pamphlets, I'll agree to become a t.i.ther. First, to start where you did, how is t.i.thing easier than giving whenever you feel like giving?"

Now, though Marcia expected no such challenge, she was game. "I'm not the one to prove all that, but I believe what I said, and I'll try to make good, as you put it. But please don't say 'give' when you talk about t.i.thing, or even about any sort of financial plan for Christians.

The first word is 'pay,' Giving comes afterward. Well, then; t.i.thing is the easiest way, because when you are a t.i.ther you always have t.i.thing money. You begin by setting the tenth apart for these uses, and it is no more hards.h.i.+p to pay it out than to pay out any other money that you have been given with instructions for its use."

"Not bad, at all," said Joe. "Now tell us why it is the surest way of using a Christian's money."

By this time Marcia was beginning to enjoy herself. "It is the surest because it almost collects itself. No begging; no schemes. You have t.i.thing money on hand--and you have, almost always--therefore you don't need to be coaxed into thinking you can spare it. If the cause is a real claim, that's all you need to find out. And when you begin to put money into any cause you're going to get interested in that cause. Besides, when all Christians t.i.the there will be more than enough money for every good work."

J.W. had not thought much of the t.i.the except as being one of those religious fads, and he knew that every church had a few religious faddists. But he had long cherished a vast respect for Marcia's good sense, and what she was saying seemed reasonable enough. He wondered if it could be backed up by evidence.

Joe smilingly took up the next excellence of the t.i.the which Marcia had named. "Let me see; did you say that the t.i.the is the fairest of all Christian financial schemes?"

"Not that, exactly," Marcia corrected. "I said it was the fairest way of acknowledging G.o.d's owners.h.i.+p and of working with him in partners.h.i.+p.

And it is. It puts definiteness in the place of whim. It is proportional to our circ.u.mstances. It is not difficult. Mr. Drury says that forty years' search has failed to find a t.i.ther who has suffered hards.h.i.+p because of paying the t.i.the."

"Well, Joe," J.W. put in, "if Marcia can produce the evidence on these three points, you may as well take the fourth for granted. If t.i.thing is the easiest, surest and fairest plan of Christian Stewards.h.i.+p, seems to me it's just got to be cheerful. I'm going to look into it, and if she's right, as I shouldn't wonder, it's up to you and me to get our finances onto the ten per cent basis."

Joe was never a reluctant convert to anything. When he saw the new way, his instinct was for immediate action. "Let's go over to Mr. Drury's,"

he proposed, "and see if we can't settle this thing to-day. I hope Marcia's right," and he looked into her eyes with a glance of something more than friendly, "and if she is I'm ready to begin t.i.thing to-day."

Pastor Drury, always a busy man, reckoned interviews like this as urgent business always. Not once nor twice, but many times in the course of a year, his quiet, indirect work resulted in similar expeditions to his study, and as a rule he knew about when to expect them. He produced the pamphlets, added a few suggestions of his own, and let the three young people do most of the talking. They stayed a long time, no one caring about that.

As they were thanking the pastor, before leaving, Joe said with his usual directness, "Marcia _was_ right, and here's where I begin to be a systematic Christian as far as my dealings with money are concerned."

J.W., not in the least ashamed to follow Joe's lead, said, "Same here.

Wish I'd known it sooner. Now we've got to preach it."

And Joe said to Mr. Drury, in the last moment at the door, "Mr. Drury, if we could all get a conscience about the t.i.the, and pay attention to that conscience, half the Everyday Doctrines would not even need to be stated. They would be self-evident. And the other half could be put into practice with a bang!"

The Delafield _Dispatch_ got hold of a copy of the "Everyday Doctrines"

and printed the whole of it with a not unfavorable editorial comment, under the caption "When Will All This Come True?"

But Walter Drury, when he saw it, said to himself, "It has already come true in a very real sense, for John Wesley, Jr., and these others believe in it." And he knew it marked one more stage of the Experiment, so that he could thank G.o.d and take courage.

CHAPTER V

HERE THE ALIEN; THERE THE LITTLE BROWN CHURCH

It was all very well to work out the "Everyday Doctrines of Delafield."

To secure their adoption and application by all the churches of Delafield was another matter. The unofficial committee scattered, for one thing. Joe Carbrook went back to medical school, and Marcia to the settlement and the training school. Marty was traveling his circuit. J.

W. and the pastor and a few others continued their studies of the town.

n.o.body had yet ventured to talk about experts, but it began to be evident that the situation would soon require thoroughgoing and skilled a.s.sistance. Otherwise, all that had been learned would surely be lost.

One day in the late fall a stranger dropped in at the Farwell Hardware Store and asked for Mr. J.W. Farwell, Jr. He had called first on Pastor Drury, who was expecting him; and that diplomat had said to him, "Go see J.W. I think he'll help you to get something started."

J.W., with two of the other clerks, was unloading a s.h.i.+pment of stovepipes. The marks of his task were conspicuous all over him, and he scarcely looked the part of the public-spirited young Methodist. But the visitor was accustomed to know men when he saw them, under all sorts of disguises.

J.W., called to the front of the store, met the visitor with a good-natured questioning gaze.

"Mr. Farwell, I am Manford Conover, of Philadelphia. Back there we have heard something of the 'Everyday Doctrines of Delafield,' and I've been sent to find out about them--and their authors."

"Sent?" J.W. repeated. "Why should anybody send you all the way from Philadelphia to Delafield just for that?" He could not know how much pastoral and even episcopal planning was back of that afternoon call.

"Don't think that we reckon it to be unimportant, Mr. Farwell," said Mr.

Conover, pleasantly. "You see I'm from a Methodist society with a long name and a business as big as its name--the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension. The thing some of you are starting here in Delafield is our sort of thing. It may supply our Board with new business in its line, and what we can do for you may make your local work productive of lasting results, in other places as well as here."

J.W. did not quite understand, but he was willing to be instructed, for he had found out that the effort to promote the "Everyday Doctrines" was forever developing new possibilities and at the same time revealing new expanses of Delafield ignorance and need. Anybody who appeared to have intelligence and interest was the more welcome.

They talked a while, and then, "I'll tell you what," proposed J.W.

"How long do you expect to be in town?" Mr. Conover replied that as yet he had made no arrangement for leaving.

"Then let's get together a few people to-night after prayer meeting. Our pastor, of course, and the editor of the _Dispatch_--he's the right sort, if he does boost 'boosting' a good deal; and Miss Leigh, of the High School--she's all right every way; and Mrs. Whitehill, the president of the Woman's a.s.sociation of our church--that's the women's missionary societies and the Ladies' Aid merged into one--she's a regular progressive; and Harry Field, who's just getting hold of his job in the League; and the Sunday school superintendent. That's dad, you know; he's had the job for a couple of years now, and he's as keen about it as Harry is over the League."

They got together, and out of that first simple discussion came all sorts of new difficulties for Delafield Methodism to face and master.

Manford Conover was a preacher with a business man's training and viewpoint. He may have mentioned his official t.i.tle, when he first appeared, but n.o.body remembered it. When people couldn't think of his name he was "the man from the Board," which was all the same to him.

After that first night's meeting Conover gave several days to walks about Delafield. J.W. had found the shacks and the tenements, and Joe Carbrook had introduced J.W. to Main Street, but it was left to Conover to show him Europe and Africa in Delafield.

There's a certain town in a Middle Western State, far better known than Delafield, rich, intelligent, highly self-content. Its churches and schools and clubs are matters for complacent satisfaction. And you would be safe in saying that not one in five of its well-to-do people know that the town has a Negro quarter, an Italian section, a Bohemian settlement, a Scandinavian community, a good-sized Greek colony, and some other centers of cultures and customs alien to what they a.s.sume is the town's distinctive character.

They know, of course, that such people live in the town--couldn't help knowing it. Their maids are Scandinavian or Negro. They buy vegetables and candy from the Greeks. They hear of bootlegging and blind tigers among certain foreign groups. The rough work of the town is done by men who speak little or no English. But all this makes small impression. It is a commonplace of American town life. And scarcely ever does it present itself as something to be looked into, or needing to be understood.

So Conover found it to be with Delafield. The "Everyday Doctrines" were well enough, but he knew a good deal of spade work must be done before they could take root and grow. He fronted a condition which has its counterpart in most American towns, each of which is two towns, one being certain well-defined and delimited areas where languages and Braces live amid conditions far removed from the American notion of what is endurable, and the other the "better part of town," sometimes smugly called "the residence section," where white Americans have homes.

Conover and Pastor Drury compared notes. They were of one mind as to the conditions which Conover had found, conditions not surprising to the minister, who knew more about Delafield than any of his own people suspected.

One afternoon they met J.W. on the street, and he led them into a candy store for hot chocolate.

As they sipped the chocolate they talked; J.W., as usual, saying whatever he happened to think of.

"Say, Mr. Conover," he remarked, "I notice in all your talk about the foreigner in America you haven't once referred to the idea of the melting pot. Don't you think that's just what America is? All these people coming here and getting Americanized and a.s.similated and all that?"