Henry Maxwell paused again and looked out over his people.  It is not easy to describe the sensation that such a simple proposition apparently made.  Men glanced at one another in astonishment.  It was not like Henry Maxwell to define Christian discipleship in this way.  There was evident confusion of thought over his proposition.  It was understood well enough, but there was, apparently, a great difference of opinion as to the application of Jesus’ teaching and example.

He calmly closed the service with a brief prayer.  The organist began his postlude immediately after the benediction and the people began to go out.  There was a great deal of conversation.  Animated groups stood all over the church discussing the minister’s proposition.  It was evidently provoking great discussion.  After several minutes he asked all who expected to remain to pass into the lecture-room which joined the large room on the side.  He was himself detained at the front of the church talking with several persons there, and when he finally turned around, the church was empty.  He walked over to the lecture-room entrance and went in.  He was almost startled to see the people who were there.  He had not made up his mind about any of his members, but he had hardly expected that so many were ready to enter into such a literal testing of their Christian discipleship as now awaited him.  There were perhaps fifty present, among them Rachel Winslow and Virginia Page, Mr. Norman, President Marsh, Alexander Powers the railroad superintendent, Milton Wright, Dr. West and Jasper Chase.

He closed the door of the lecture-room and went and stood before the little group.  His face was pale and his lips trembled with genuine emotion.  It was to him a genuine crisis in his own life and that of his parish.  No man can tell until he is moved by the Divine Spirit what he may do, or how he may change the current of a lifetime of fixed habits of thought and speech and action.  Henry Maxwell did not, as we have said, yet know himself all that he was passing through, but he was conscious of a great upheaval in his definition of Christian discipleship, and he was moved with a depth of feeling he could not measure as he looked into the faces of those men and women on this occasion.

It seemed to him that the most fitting word to be spoken first was that of prayer.  He asked them all to pray with him.  And almost with the first syllable he uttered there was a distinct presence of the Spirit felt by them all.  As the prayer went on, this presence grew in power.  They all felt it.  The room was filled with it as plainly as if it had been visible.  When the prayer closed there was a silence that lasted several moments.  All the heads were bowed.  Henry Maxwell’s face was wet with tears.  If an audible voice from heaven had sanctioned their pledge to follow the Master’s steps, not one person present could have felt more certain of the divine blessing.  And so the most serious movement ever started in the First Church of Raymond was begun.