“Why, Aunt?  Don’t you like the muffins I made this morning?” Felicia would ask meekly, but with a hidden smile, knowing her aunt’s weakness for that kind of muffin.

“They were beautiful, Felicia.  But it does not seem right for you to be doing such work for us.”

“Why not?  What else can I do?”

Her aunt looked at her thoughtfully, noting her remarkable beauty of face and expression.

“You do not always intend to do this kind of work, Felicia?”

“Maybe I shall.  I have had a dream of opening an ideal cook shop in Chicago or some large city and going around to the poor families in some slum district like the Rectangle, teaching the mothers how to prepare food properly.  I remember hearing Dr. Bruce say once that he believed one of the great miseries of comparative poverty consisted in poor food.  He even went so far as to say that he thought some kinds of crime could be traced to soggy biscuit and tough beefsteak.  I’m sure I would be able to make a living for Rose and myself and at the same time help others.”

Chapter Twenty-five

Three months had gone by since the Sunday morning when Dr. Bruce came into his pulpit with the message of the new discipleship.  They were three months of great excitement in Nazareth Avenue Church.  Never before had Rev. Calvin Bruce realized how deep the feeling of his members flowed.  He humbly confessed that the appeal he had made met with an unexpected response from men and women who, like Felicia, were hungry for something in their lives that the conventional type of church membership and fellowship had failed to give them.

But Dr. Bruce was not yet satisfied for himself.  He cannot tell what his feeling was or what led to the movement he finally made, to the great astonishment of all who knew him, better than by relating a conversation between him and the Bishop at this time in the history of the pledge in Nazareth Avenue Church.  The two friends were as before in Dr. Bruce’s house, seated in his study.

“You know what I have come in this evening for?” the Bishop was saying after the friends had been talking some time about the results of the pledge with the Nazareth Avenue people.

Dr. Bruce looked over at the Bishop and shook his head.

“I have come to confess that I have not yet kept my promise to walk in His steps in the way that I believe I shall be obliged to if I satisfy my thought of what it means to walk in His steps.”

Dr. Bruce had risen and was pacing his study.  The Bishop remained in the deep easy chair with his hands clasped, but his eye burned with the blow that belonged to him before he made some great resolve.

“Edward,” Dr. Bruce spoke abruptly, “I have not yet been able to satisfy myself, either, in obeying my promise.  But I have at last decided on my course.  In order to follow it I shall be obliged to resign from Nazareth Avenue Church.”