The after-meeting at the First Church was now eagerly established.  Henry Maxwell went into the lecture-room on the Sunday succeeding the week of the primary, and was greeted with an enthusiasm that made him tremble at first for its reality.  He noted again the absence of Jasper Chase, but all the others were present, and they seemed drawn very close together by a bond of common fellowship that demanded and enjoyed mutual confidences.  It was the general feeling that the spirit of Jesus was the spirit of very open, frank confession of experience.  It seemed the most natural thing in the world, therefore, for Edward Norman to be telling all the rest of the company about the details of his newspaper.

“The fact is, I have lost a great deal of money during the last three weeks.  I cannot tell just how much.  I am losing a great many subscribers every day.”

“What do the subscribers give as their reason for dropping the paper?” asked Mr. Maxwell.  All the rest were listening eagerly.

“There are a good many different reasons.  Some say they want a paper that prints all the news; meaning, by that, the crime details, sensations like prize fights, scandals and horrors of various kinds.  Others object to the discontinuance of the Sunday edition.  I have lost hundreds of subscribers by that action, although I have made satisfactory arrangements with many of the old subscribers by giving them even more in the extra Saturday edition than they formerly had in the Sunday issue.  My greatest loss has come from a falling off in advertisements, and from the attitude I have felt obliged to take on political questions.  The last action has really cost me more than any other.  The bulk of my subscribers are intensely partisan.  I may as well tell you all frankly that if I continue to pursue the plan which I honestly believe Jesus would pursue in the matter of political issues and their treatment from a non-partisan and moral standpoint, the news will not be able to pay its operating expenses unless one factor in Raymond can be depended on.”

He paused a moment and the room was very quiet.  Virginia seemed specially interested.  Her face glowed with interest.  It was like the interest of a person who had been thinking hard of the same thing which Norman went on to mention.

“That one factor is the Christian element in Raymond.  Say the news has lost heavily from the dropping off of people who do not care for a Christian daily, and from others who simply look upon a newspaper as a purveyor of all sorts of material to amuse or interest them, are there enough genuine Christian people in Raymond who will rally to the support of a paper such as Jesus would probably edit? or are the habits of the church people so firmly established in their demand for the regular type of journalism that they will not take a paper unless it is stripped largely of the Christian and moral purpose?  I may say in this fellowship gathering that owing to