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.  Nobody had yet ventured to talk about experts, but it began to be evident that the situation would soon require thoroughgoing and skilled assistance.  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 shipment 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.