John Wesley, Jr. Part 20

CHRIST AND THE EAST

For a first trip the Southwestern expedition under Fred Finch's tutelage had been something of an exploit. Finch's report to Peter McDougall was more than verified by the order sheets, and the observant Peter, keeping track of things during the succeeding weeks, noticed with quiet satisfaction that not a single order Was canceled.

To himself he said, "The lad's a find, I'm thinking. From Finch's talk I should say he has not only a natural knack of selling, but he sells for keeps. And that's the idea, Peter. Anybody can sell if the buyer means to call off the order by the next mail. This John Wesley boy may go far, and I'll have to tell Albert Drury the next time I see him that he's done the house of c.u.mmings a real favor."

The months went by. J.W. kept his wits about him, and on the road he stuck to his salesman's faith that goods are better sold by those who know exactly how they may be used and that they are never sold until they are bought. So he found favor in the sight of Peter McDougall. The proof of that is easy. Peter gave him a week off before the end of his first year.

Delafield looked better to the homecoming salesman than it had to the boy coming back from college. And the town was glad to see him. He meant something to not a few of its people, altogether outside the interest of the Farwells--and Pastor Drury--and Jeannette!

Deep Creek was his first port of call, after his first half-day at home.

He had been welcomed with deep, quiet gladness by the home folks, and he had talked a little over the telephone with the preacher. Then time was a laggard until he could head the Farwell car toward Deep Creek and the old farm.

Jeannette's welcome was all that even he could ask, though, of course, just precisely what it was is none of our business. In the car, and by the fireplace in the Shenk living room, and around the farm, they considered many things, some of them not so personal as others. J.W.

told the story of his life in Saint Louis and on the road; Jeannette listening like another Desdemona to the recital. And once again it was not the adventure which supplied the thrill, but the adventurer.

And Jeannette told him the news of Delafield. How Joe Carbrook and Marcia Dayne's wedding had been the most wonderful wedding ever seen in Delafield, with the town as proud of its one-time scapegrace as it was of the beautiful bride. How brother Marty had been finding many excuses of late for driving up from his circuit, and how he managed to see Alma Wetherell a good deal. How Alma was now head bookkeeper and cashier of the Emporium, the town's biggest store, and how she was such a dear girl. How Pastor Drury and Marty had become great friends. How the minister was not so well as usual, and people were getting to be a little worried about him. How the Delafield church had taken up t.i.thing, and was not only doing a lot better financially, but in every other way.

How Deep Creek was going to have a new minister, a friend whom Marty had met at the summer school for rural ministers, who would try to help the Deep Creek people get an up-to-date church building and learn to use it.

How the Everyday Doctrines of Delafield had been first boosted and then forgotten, and now again several of them were being practiced in some quarters. And much more, though never to the wearing out of J.W.'s interest. Certainly not, the news being just what he wanted to know, and the reporter thereof being just the person he wanted to tell it to him.

One bit of news Jeannette did not tell, for the sufficient reason that she did not know it. Pastor Drury and Brother Marty _had_ become great friends, but what Jeannette could not tell was the special bond of interest which was back of the fact. Marty had long been aware that for some reason the Delafield pastor was peculiarly concerned about J.W.

Never did he guess Walter Drury's secret, but he knew well enough there was one.

These two, the town preacher and the young circuit rider, read to each other J.W.'s letters, and talked much about him and his experiences, and made J.W. in general the theme of many discussions.

"It has been good for the boy that he has had that border trip," said the pastor to Marty a few days before J.W. got back. "Don't you think so?"

Marty was, as ever, J.W.'s ardent and self-effacing chum. "I certainly do," he said. "He's growing, is J.W., and growing the right way. We need business men of just the quality that's showing in him."

The pastor hesitated a moment. Then he spoke: "Marty, when J.W. comes home I hope something will set him thinking about the outer world that has no word of our Christ. He hasn't seen it yet, not clearly; and you know that there isn't any hope for that world to get out of the depths until it gets the news of a Helper. I'm counting on you to help me with J.W. if the chance comes. Just between ourselves, you know."

"I'll do all I can, Mr. Drury; you may be sure of that," said Marty. And he did.

J.W.'s holiday brought several young people together who had not met for a long time. Marty came up again, and spent the day with J.W., all over town, from the store to the house and back again. In the evening Mrs.

Farwell made a feast, to which, besides Marty, Jeannette and Alma and Pastor Drury were bidden. Mrs. Farwell was much more to Delafield than the best cook and the most remarkable housekeeper in the place, but her son insisted that she was these to begin with. Certainly, she had not been experimenting on the two J.W.'s all these years for nothing.

After dinner--talk. No need of any other game in that company at such a time. There was plenty to talk about, and all had their reasons for enjoying it. Naturally, J.W. must tell about himself. Letters are all very well, but they are no more than makeshifts, after all. He was modest enough about it, not having any special exploits to parade before their wondering eyes, but quite willing. His Western experiences being called for, he was soon telling, not of desert and cactus and irrigation, but of the people who had so taken his attention, the Mexicans.

"I believe," said he, "that we can do something really big down there.

And it's our business. n.o.body except American Christians will do it; n.o.body else can. Besides, the Mexicans are Christians in name, now. What they need is the reality. They are not impossible--just uncertain. All I heard and what little I saw made me believe they are suffering from bad leadership and ignorance more than from anything hopelessly wrong. They seem easy to get along with. The women are the most patient workers I ever heard of. And the poor Mexicans, the 'peons,' do want an end to fighting and banditry."

"Well, J.W.," Marty asked, "what's the first thing we ought to think about for Mexico?"

"I told you I don't know anything about Mexico, except at second-hand.

But, I should say, schools. Schools are good for any land, don't you think, Mr. Drury? And in Mexico they are such great disturbers of the old slouching indifference. They will make the right kind of discontent. Schools bring other things; new ideas of health and sanitation, home improvement, social outlook, and all that. Then, with the schools, I guess, the straight gospel. The Mexicans won't get converted all at once, and they won't become like us, ever. But I'm about ready to say that whether missions are needed anywhere else or not, they surely are needed in Mexico. And Mexico is the first stepping-stone to South America; which is next on my list of the places that ought to have the whole scheme of Christian teaching and life."

"Yes," said Alma, "and you know, I suppose, that the beginning of our Panama Mission was an Epworth League Inst.i.tute enterprise? Well, it was.

California young people a.s.sumed the support of the first missionary sent there, and later he went on down to South America, with the same young people determined to take him on as their representative, just as they did in Panama."

"Where did you get that story?" J.W. wanted to know.

"Oh, I forgot," Alma answered him, laughing. "You haven't had time to read The Epworth Herald in Saint Louis."

"Yes, I have, young lady," J.W. retorted, "but I missed that. Anyway, it's on the right track. I think we've got to change the thinking of all Latin America about Christianity, if we can. Most of the men, they say, are atheists, made so very largely by their loss of faith in the church; and many of the women subst.i.tute an almost fierce devotion to the same church for what we think of as being genuine religion."

The minister spoke up just here. "I should think it would be pretty difficult to treat our United States Mexicans in one way, and those across the Rio Grande in another. We must evangelize on both sides of the river, but only on this side can we even attempt to Americanize."

"That's right," J.W. affirmed. "And even on this side we can't do what we may do in Delafield. The language is a big question, and it has two sides. But no matter what the difficulties, I'm for a great advance of missions and education, starting with Mexico and going all the way to Cape Horn."

"That's all very fine," interposed Marty, "but what about the rest of the world, J.W.? What about the world that has not even the beginning of Christian knowledge?" Marty had put the question on the urge of the moment, and not until it was out did he remember that Mr. Drury had asked him to help raise this very issue.

"Well," J.W. answered, slowly, "maybe that part of the world is worse, though I don't know. But we can't tackle everything. Latin America is an immense job by itself, and we have some real responsibility there; a sort of Christian Monroe Doctrine. Ought we to scatter our forces? The non-Christian world has its own religions, and has had them for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. What's the hurry just now? If we could do everything, we Protestant Christians, I mean, in this country and Britain, it might be different, but we can't. Why not concentrate?"

"Yes," Marty came back, "but not because Latin America is so nearly Christian. What about this atheism and superst.i.tion and ignorance; isn't it just a non-Christian civilization with Christian labels on some parts of it?"

"One thing I've heard," put in Jeannette, not that she wanted to argue, but she felt she ought to say something on J.W.'s side if she could, "that the religions of the Orient, at least, are really great religions, more suited to the minds of the people than any other. 'East is East, and West is West,' you know. But, of course, the people don't live up to the high levels of their beliefs. Americans don't, either."

Mr. Drury shot an amused yet admiring glance at Jeannette. What a loyal soul she was! Then said he: "The religions of the East _are_ great religions, Jeannette. They represent the best that men can do. The Orient has a genius for religion, and it has produced far better systems than the West could have done. Some of the truth that we Western people get only in Christianity the thinkers of Asia worked out for themselves.

But G.o.d was back of it all."

That suited J.W.'s present mood. "All right, then; let's clean up as we go--Delafield, Saint Louis, the Southwest, Mexico, Latin America; that's the logical order. Then the rest of the world."

Marty put in a protest here: "That won't do, old man. Your logic's lame.

You want us to go into Mexico now, with all we've got. Your letters have said so, and you've said it again to-night. But we're not 'cleaning up as we go.' Look at Delafield; the town you've moved away from. Look at Saint Louis; the town where you make your living. Are they Christianized? Cleaned up? Yet you are ready for Mexico. No; you're all wrong, J.W. I don't believe the world's going to be saved the way you break up prairie sod, a field at a time, and let the rest alone. We've got to do our missionary work the way they feed famine sufferers. They don't give any applicant all he can eat, but they try to make the supply go 'round, giving each one a little. Remember, J.W., the rest of the world is as human as our western hemisphere."

"I know," admitted J.W. "And I don't say I've got the right of it. I'd have to see the Orient before I made up my mind. But those countries have waited a long while. A few more years wouldn't be any great matter."

Alma Wetherell now joined the opposition. It looked as though J.W. and Jeannette must stand alone, for the old people said nothing, though they listened with eager ears. Said Alma, "I think it would matter a lot. The more we do for one people, while ignoring all the others, the less we should care to drop a developing work to begin at the bottom somewhere else."

"There's something in that," J.W. conceded. "I'm not meaning to be stubborn. But I've had just a glimpse of the size of the missionary job in one little corner of the world. Even that is too big for us. We could put our whole missionary investment into Mexico without being able to do what is needed."

"The missionary job, as you call it, is too big, certainly, for our present resources," said the pastor. "Everybody knows that."

"Yes," said Marty, who wondered if Mr. Drury had forgotten their compact about J.W., "but why limit ourselves to our present resources? They are not all we could get, if the church came to believe in the bigness of her privilege. I'd like to see for myself, as J.W. says, but I can't.

Why don't you get a real traveling job, and go about the world looking things over for us, old man?"

"Me?" J.W. said, sarcastically; "yes, that's a likely prospect. Just as I'm getting over being scared by a sample case. I'll do well to hold the job I've got."

Alma didn't know what Marty's game was, but she played up to his suggestion. "Why shouldn't you go?" she asked. "You've told us that c.u.mmings hardware and tools are sold all over the world. Doesn't that mean salesmen? And aren't you a salesman? They have to send somebody; why shouldn't they pick on you some time?"

J.W. rose to the lure, for the moment all salesman. "Nothing in it, Alma; no chance at all. But I would like to show the world the civilizing values of good tools, and I'd go if I got the chance."

Jeannette's reaction was quicker than thinking; "Would you go half way around the world just for that?" she asked, with a hint of alarm.

"Why, yes, I would," said J.W., "that is, if you were willing."

Whereupon everybody laughed but Jeannette, whose pale cheeks flamed into sudden rosiness.

The minister came to her rescue. "It would be a good thing every way, if more laymen would see the realities of Oriental life and bring back an impartial report. Suppose you should be right, J.W., and we found that the Orient could wait until the western hemisphere had been thoroughly Christianized. Think how many thousands--perhaps millions--of dollars could be directed into more productive channels. I can see what a great influence such reports would have if they came from Christian laymen. We have learned to expect stories of complete failure when the ordinary traveler comes back; and maybe the missionaries have their bias too. But business men with Christian ideals--that would be different."