When the meeting closed, there was no special interest shown.  No one stayed to the after-meeting.  The people rapidly melted away from the tent, and the saloons, which had been experiencing a dull season while the meetings progressed, again drove a thriving trade.  The Rectangle, as if to make up for lost time, started in with vigor on its usual night debauch.  Maxwell and his little party, including Virginia, Rachel and Jasper Chase, walked down past the row of saloons and dens until they reached the corner where the cars passed.

“This is a terrible spot,” said the minister as he stood waiting for their car.  “I never realized that Raymond had such a festering sore.  It does not seem possible that this is a city full of Christian disciples.”

“Do you think any one can ever remove this great curse of drink?” asked Jasper Chase.

“I have thought lately as never before of what Christian people might do to remove the curse of the saloon.  Why don’t we all act together against it?  Why don’t the Christian pastors and the church members of Raymond move as one man against the traffic?  What would Jesus do?  Would He keep silent?  Would He vote to license these causes of crime and death?”

He was talking to himself more than to the others.  He remembered that he had always voted for license, and so had nearly all his church members.  What would Jesus do?  Could he answer that question?  Would the Master preach and act against the saloon if He lived today?  How would He preach and act?  Suppose it was not popular to preach against license?  Suppose the Christian people thought it was all that could be done to license the evil and so get revenue from the necessary sin?  Or suppose the church members themselves owned the property where the saloons stood—­what then?  He knew that those were the facts in Raymond.  What would Jesus do?

He went up into his study the next morning with that question only partly answered.  He thought of it all day.  He was still thinking of it and reaching certain real conclusions when the evening news came.  His wife brought it up and sat down a few minutes while he read to her.

The evening news was at present the most sensational paper in Raymond.  That is to say, it was being edited in such a remarkable fashion that its subscribers had never been so excited over a newspaper before.  First they had noticed the absence of the prize fight, and gradually it began to dawn upon them that the news no longer printed accounts of crime with detailed descriptions, or scandals in private life.  Then they noticed that the advertisements of liquor and tobacco were dropped, together with certain others of a questionable character.  The discontinuance of the Sunday paper caused the greatest comment of all, and now the character of the editorials was creating the greatest excitement.  A quotation from the Monday paper of this week will show what Edward Norman was doing to keep his promise.  The editorial was headed: