But it was not a usual Sunday.  The Church, just the night before, had closed a big fair for the College.  Many had served at the fair tables almost until the Sabbath morning was ushered in.  They were tired.  All had given money, many even beyond what they could afford.  It was, besides, the day after Christmas, and if ever a man’s pocketbook is empty, it is then.  To make the outlook still drearier, the day opened with a snowstorm that threatened at church time to turn into a drizzling rain.  Here was truly the impossible, for none of the people at any time could give a large sum.  Yet he faced the situation dauntlessly, aroused his people, and by evening $2,200 had been pledged for immediate payment, and of that $1,300 was received in cash that Sunday.

In a sermon once he said: 

“Last summer I rode by a locality where there had been a mill, now partially destroyed by a cyclone.  I looked at the great engine lying upon its side.  I looked at the wheels, at the boilers so out of place, thrown carelessly together.  I saw pieces of iron the uses of which I did not understand.  I saw iron bands, bearings, braces, and shafting scattered about, and I found the great circular saw rusting, flat in the grass.  I went on my way wondering why any person should abandon so many pieces of such excellent machinery, leaving good property to go to waste.  But again, not many weeks ago, I went by that same place and saw a building there, temporary in its nature, but with smoke pouring out of the stack and steam hissing and puffing from the exhaust pipe.  I heard the sound of the great saw singing its song of industry; I saw the teamsters hauling away great loads of lumber.  The only difference between the apparently useless old lumber and scrap iron, piled together in promiscuous confusion, machinery thrown into a heap without the arrangement, and the new building with its powerful engine working smoothly and swiftly for the comfort and wealth of men, was that before the rebuilding, the wheels, the saw, the shafting, boilers, piston-rod, and fly wheel had no definite relation to each other.  But some man picked out all these features of a complete mill and put them into proper relation; he adjusted shaft, boiler, and cogwheel, put water in the boiler and fire under it, let steam into the cylinders, and moved piston-rod, wheels, and saw.  There were no new cogs, wheels, boilers, or saws; no new piece of machinery; there has only been an intelligent spirit found to set them in their proper places and relationship.

“One great difficulty with this world, whether of the entire globe or the individual church, is that it is made up of all sorts of machinery which is not adjusted; which is out of place; no fire under the boiler; no steam to move the machinery.  There is none of the necessary relationship—­there can he no affinity between cold and steam, between power wasted and utility; and to overcome this difficulty is one of the great problems of the earth to-day.