Read Ebook: John Wesley Jr. The Story of an Experiment by Brummitt Dan B Dan Brearley

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Ebook has 1044 lines and 74403 words, and 21 pages

With such a name you will understand that he's a Methodist by first intention; born so. He is a pretty sturdy young Christian, showing it in a boy's modest but direct fashion, which even his teammates of the high-school football squad found it no trouble to tolerate, because they knew him for a human, healthy boy, and not a morbid, self-inspecting religious prig. Pastor Drury, you may be sure, had taken note of all that, for he and J.W. had been fast friends since the day he had received the boy into the church.

The morning after the Institute social J.W. announced at breakfast his sudden change of plan.

"If you don't mind, Dad, I've about decided to go to the Institute instead of Chicago. There is a bunch of us going, and Mr. Drury will be there. Uncle Henry's folks might not want to be bothered with me now, and anyway I don't know them very well. But I can go to the Institute with the church crowd; and there will be tennis and swimming and plenty of other fun besides the big program." Which was quite a speech for J. W.

John Wesley, Sr., didn't know much about the Institute, but he had an endless regard for his pastor, and the mother was characteristically willing to postpone her boy's introduction to the unknown and, in her thought, therefore, the menacing city.

So, after the brief but unhurried devotions at the breakfast table, which had come to serve in place of the old-time family prayers, parental approval was forthcoming. And thus it befell that J.W. selected for himself a future whose every experience was to be affected by so slight a matter as his impulsive choice of a week's holiday. That choice expressed to him the new freedom of his years, for he had not even been conscious of the quiet influence which had made it easier than he knew to decide as he had done.

It was a mixed and lively company that found itself crowded around the registrar's table at the Institute one Monday evening in July, with J. W. and his own particular chum, Martin Luther Shenk, better known as "Marty," right in the middle of it.

J.W. wondered where so many Epworthians could have come from. Did they really hanker after the Institute, or had they come for reasons as trivial as his own? He put the question to Martin Luther Shenk.

"Marty, do you reckon these are all here for real Epworth League work, or does the Institute want anybody and everybody?"

Marty had been scouting a little, and he answered: "No, to both questions, I should say. Some have come just to be coming, and others seem to be here for business. But I saw Joe Carbrook just now, and if he is an Epworth Leaguer I am the Prince of Puget Sound. You know how he stands at home. Wonder what he came for."

Just then Joe Carbrook himself came up. He was from Delafield too, member of the same League chapter as the two chums, but he had rarely condescended to league affairs. Having had two rather variegated years at college, he felt he must show his sophistication by holding himself above some of those simple old observances.

"S'pose you are here for solemn and serious work, you two," he remarked mockingly, as he saw the boys. "I just met Marcia Dayne, and she told me you were registering. Well, I'm here too--drove up in my car--but you don't catch me tying myself down to all that study stuff. I'm looking for fun, not work."

"Nothing new for you in that, Joe," said Marty. "But I should think you might try the study stuff, if only for a change, after you have spent good money on gas and tires. And you have to pay for your meals, you know."

"Well, I studied hard enough last month in college cramming for the final exams, so I could get within gunshot of enough sophomore credits, and I'm through; with study for a while. If I find a few live ones in this crowd, I guess we can enjoy ourselves without interfering with any of you grinds, if you must study," and Joe Carbrook went off in search of his live ones.

J.W. and Marty were in no hurry to register. The crowd milling around in the office was interesting, and J.W. was still wondering how many of them, himself included, would get enough Institute long before the week was over. Besides, it was yet an hour before supper.

"Think of it, Marty. All these people come from Epworth Leagues just like ours, from Springfield, and Wolf Prairie and Madison and all over this part of the State. What for, I'd like to know? Will you look at those pennants? Wish we had brought one or two of ours; we could add to the display, anyway."

"I have two in my suitcase," said Marty. "We'll have them out this evening at the introduction meeting. And maybe you'll find out 'what for' by that time."

The introduction meeting in the chapel after supper was for the most part informal. Yells and songs and the waving of pennants punctuated the proceedings, as is quite the proper thing in an Epworth League gathering. Some people, who see only what is on the surface, cannot wholly understand the exuberance of an Epworth League crowd. But it has roots in something very real.

The dean of the Institute managed, amid the roystering and the intervals of attention, to set things up for the week. A few regulations would need to be laid down; and these would be fixed, not by the faculty or by the dean, but by the Student Council. Would each district group please get together at once, and select some one to represent the group on this council?

This request being obeyed amid considerable confusion, with Marcia Dayne appointed from the Fort Adams District, and the council excused to draft the basic laws for the week, the faculty was introduced, one by one.

Each teacher was given the opportunity to describe his or her course, so that out of the eight or nine courses offered every delegate might select two besides the two which were required of all students, and so qualify for an Institute diploma.

J.W. found himself enjoying all this hugely. It appealed to his growing sense of freedom from schoolboy restraint. If he did go to any of the classes, it appeared that he could pick the ones he liked. Up to now he had entertained no thought of any serious work, but the faculty talks about these courses made him think there might be worse ways of spending the week than qualifying for an Institute diploma. The whole thing seemed to be so easy and so friendly. Of course he could see that the study would not be much, even if he signed up for it, being just for a week, but it might not be bad fun.

Morning Watch was an experience to J.W. He was surprised to find himself staying awake in a before-breakfast religious meeting, and was even more surprised to be enjoying it. Something about this big crowd of young people stirred all his pulses, and the religion they heard about and talked about seemed to J.W. something very real and desirable. He thought of himself as a Christian, but he wondered if his Christian life might not become more confident and productive. In this atmosphere one almost felt that anything was possible.

Meal times turned out to be times of orderly disorder. J.W. and his friends were at a table with other groups from the Fort Adams District, and he quickly mastered the raucous roar which served the District for a yell. Before the end of the second day his alert good nature made him cheer leader, and thereafter he rarely had time to eat all that was set before him, though possessed of a boy's healthy appetite. It was simply that the other possibilities of the hour seemed more alluring than mere food.

From the first day of the class work J.W. found himself keen for all that was going on. There was variety enough so that he felt no weariness, and the range of new interests opened up each day kept him at constant and pleasurable attention. Without knowing just how, he was catching the Institute spirit.

He walked away from the dining hall one noon with his pastor-friend, and he talked. He had to talk to somebody, and Walter Drury contrived to know of his need.

"Why, Mr. Drury," he said, eagerly, "I'm just finding out how little I know about the church and real Christian work. I thought I was something of an average Methodist boy, but if the people at home are no better than I am, I can see how being a preacher to such a bunch is a man's job."

"Correct, J.W." said the minister. "I find that out many a time, to my humbling. But honestly, now, are you learning things you never knew before?"

"Ye-es, I am," J.W. answered, "and then, again, I'm not. It seems to me as if I had always known a lot of what we are getting in these classes, though there is plenty of new stuff too. But until now I didn't get much out of what I knew. I've always liked to hear you, but you're different. As for most of the things I've heard, I just thought of it as religious talk, church stuff, you know. It didn't seem to matter, but here it is beginning to matter in all sorts of ways, and I can see that it matters to me."

"How, for instance?"

Well, take the class in home missions; Americanization, they call it. Maybe you noticed that the first thing the teacher did was to divide the class right down the middle, and tell those on the left hand--yes, I'm one of the goats--that for the rest of the week they were to consider themselves aliens. The others were to play native-born Americans. And so the study started, but believe me, we aliens have already begun to make it interesting for those natives. Some of 'em want to come over on our side already, but they can't. A few of us have found some immigration dope in the college library, and it is pretty strong. We'll show up those Pilgrim Fathers before the week is out. They think they have done everything an alien could ask when they let him into the country, and then they work him twelve hours a day, seven days a week, or else let him hunt the country over for any sort of a job. They rob him by making him pay higher prices than other people for all he has to buy. They force him to live in places not fit for rats, and on top of everything else they call him names, so that their kids stick up their noses at his children in the school grounds. After all that they expect he'll become a good citizen just by hearing 'The Star-Spangled Banner' at the movies and watching the flag go by when there's a parade.

"Say, Mr. Drury, it makes me sick, and, if I feel that way just to be pretending I'm a 'Wop' for a week, how do you suppose the real aliens feel? Excuse me for talking like this, but honestly, something like that is going on in all these classes; I wish we could take up such things in the League at home." And he forced an embarrassed little laugh.

Pastor Drury laughed too, and said of course they could, as he linked arms with J.W., and they passed on down the road. The preacher talked but little, contriving merely to drop a question now and then; and J.W. talked on, half-ashamed to be so "gabby," as he put it, and yet moved by an impulse as pleasant as it was novel.

"And foreign missions, Mr. Drury. You won't be offended, I hope, but somehow as far back as I can remember I have always connected foreign missions with collections and 'Greenland's Icy Mountains' and little naked Hottentots, and something--I don't know just what--about the River Ganges. But here--why, that China class just makes me want to see China for myself and find out how much of the advantages of American life over Chinese has come on account of religion."

"Well, why not, J.W.? Maybe you will go to China some day, and have a hand in it all," suggested the pastor, to try him out.

The boy shook his head.

"No, I don't think so. I am certainly getting a new line on foreign missions, but I don't think there's missionary stuff in me. I'll have to go at the proposition some other way."

Then Pastor Drury set him going on another subject.

"What do you think of the young folks who are here?" he asked.

"Well, at first I thought they were all away ahead of our bunch at home, and some of them are; but you soon find out that the majority is pretty much of the same sort as ours. I think I've spotted a few slackers, but mighty few. Most of the crowd seems to be all right, and I've already made some real friends. But do you know which one of them all is the most interesting fellow I've met?"

The pastor thought he did, but he merely asked, "Who?"

"Why, that Greek boy, Phil Khamis. He is from Salonika, you know. He knows the old country like a book, and he's going back some day, maybe to be some kind of missionary to his people, in the very places where the apostle Paul preached. Honest, I never knew until he told me that his Salonika is the town of those Christians to whom Paul wrote two of his letters; those to the Thessalonians--'Thessalonika,' you know. Well, you ought to hear Phil talk. He came over here seven years ago, and learned the English language from the preacher at Westvale."

"Yes, I have heard about him," said Mr. Drury. "They say he lived in the parsonage and paid the preacher for his English lessons by giving him a new understanding of the Greek New Testament. Not many of us have found out yet how to get such pay for being decent to our friends from the other side."

"Well, he is a thoroughbred, anyway; and do you notice how he is right up in front when there is anything doing? The only way you can tell he isn't American born is that he is so anxious to help out on all the unpleasant work. When I look at Phil it makes me boil to think of fellows like him being called 'Wop.'"

On the steps of the library Marcia Dayne and some other girls were holding an informal reception. Joe Carbrook, with one or two of his friends, was finding it agreeable to assume a superior air concerning the Institute. The impression the boys gave was that their coming to the Institute at all had been a great concession, but that they were under no illusions about the place.

"All this is all right," Joe was saying, "for those who need it, but what's the good of it all to us? For instance, what do you get out of it, Marcia?"

"What do you think I want to get out of it? If you cared for the young people's work at home, I should think you could see how 'all this,' as you call it, would help you to do better work and more of it at Delafield."

"As you ought to know pretty well, Marcia," Joe replied, "back home they think I don't care much for the young people's work. It is a little too prim and ready-to-wear for me, if you'll excuse me for saying so. No fun in it at all, though I'll admit some of the classes here have more life in them than I looked for."

One of the other girls, who knew him well enough to speak with large frankness, came to the defense of them all, saying: "Well, Joe, I don't see that you get very far with what you call fun. It's mostly at the expense of other people, including your father, who pays the bills. Besides, since you came home from college this spring, you seem to have run out of nearly all the bright ideas you started with. I wonder if it ever strikes you that being a sport, as you call it, is mostly being a nuisance to everybody? Some of us long ago got over thinking you clever and original. You must be getting over it yourself, by now, surely."

"Many thanks, dear lady, for them kind words," Joe responded, as he bowed low in mock acknowledgment; "you make yourself quite plain, Miss Alma Wetherell." He flung back the insult jauntily, as he and his companions moved on, but at least one of the group suspected that the words had struck home.

You who know the General Secretary could easily forgive J.W. his delight in the class of which the program said the subject was "Methods." This is the only hour in an Institute which the Epworth League takes for its own work. Rightly enough, it is a crowded hour, with the whole Institute present, and usually it is an hour of unflagging interest.

J.W. and Marty were enjoying their first Institute too much to be late at any classes. They were merely a little earlier at this class; to miss any of it would be a distinct loss.

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