Maxwell went out and walked over to the next block where Superintendent Powers lived.  To his relief, Powers himself came to the door.

The two men shook hands silently.  They instantly understood each other without words.  There had never before been such a bond of union between the minister and his parishioner.

“What are you going to do?” Henry Maxwell asked after they had talked over the facts in the case.

“You mean another position?  I have no plans yet.  I can go back to my old work as a telegraph operator.  My family will not suffer, except in a social way.”

Powers spoke calmly and sadly.  Henry Maxwell did not need to ask him how the wife and daughter felt.  He knew well enough that the superintendent had suffered deepest at that point.

“There is one matter I wish you would see to,” said Powers after awhile, “and that is, the work begun at the shops.  So far as I know, the company will not object to that going on.  It is one of the contradictions of the railroad world that Y. M. C. A.’s and other Christian influences are encouraged by the roads, while all the time the most un-Christian and lawless acts may be committed in the official management of the roads themselves.  Of course it is well understood that it pays a railroad to have in its employ men who are temperate, honest and Christian.  So I have no doubt the master mechanic will have the same courtesy shown him in the use of the room.  But what I want you to do, Mr. Maxwell, is to see that my plan is carried out.  Will you?  You understand what it was in general.  You made a very favorable impression on the men.  Go down there as often as you can.  Get Milton Wright interested to provide something for the furnishing and expense of the coffee plant and reading tables.  Will you do it?”

“Yes,” replied Henry Maxwell.  He stayed a little longer.  Before he went away, he and the superintendent had a prayer together, and they parted with that silent hand grasp that seemed to them like a new token of their Christian discipleship and fellowship.

The pastor of the First Church went home stirred deeply by the events of the week.  Gradually the truth was growing upon him that the pledge to do as Jesus would was working out a revolution in his parish and throughout the city.  Every day added to the serious results of obedience to that pledge.  Maxwell did not pretend to see the end.  He was, in fact, only now at the very beginning of events that were destined to change the history of hundreds of families not only in Raymond but throughout the entire country.  As he thought of Edward Norman and Rachel and Mr. Powers, and of the results that had already come from their actions, he could not help a feeling of intense interest in the probable effect if all the persons in the First Church who had made the pledge, faithfully kept it.  Would they all keep it, or would some of them turn back when the cross became too heavy?