In His Steps | Page 5

his wife asked after a pause.
"Yes, all done. It has been a very busy week with me. The two sermons
have cost me a good deal of labor."
"They will be appreciated by a large audience, Sunday, I hope," replied
his wife smiling. "What are you going to preach about in the morning?"
"Following Christ. I take up the Atonement under the head of sacrifice
and example, and then show the steps needed to follow His sacrifice
and example."
"I am sure it is a good sermon. I hope it won't rain Sunday. We have

had so many stormy Sundays lately."
"Yes, the audiences have been quite small for some time. People will
not come out to church in a storm." The Rev. Henry Maxwell sighed as
he said it. He was thinking of the careful, laborious effort he had made
in preparing sermons for large audiences that failed to appear.
But Sunday morning dawned on the town of Raymond one of the
perfect days that sometimes come after long periods of wind and mud
and rain. The air was clear and bracing, the sky was free from all
threatening signs, and every one in Mr. Maxwell's parish prepared to go
to church. When the service opened at eleven o'clock the large building
was filled with an audience of the best-dressed, most comfortable
looking people of Raymond.
The First Church of Raymond believed in having the best music that
money could buy, and its quartet choir this morning was a source of
great pleasure to the congregation. The anthem was inspiring. All the
music was in keeping with the subject of the sermon. And the anthem
was an elaborate adaptation to the most modern music of the hymn,
"Jesus, I my cross have taken, All to leave and follow Thee."
Just before the sermon, the soprano sang a solo, the well-known hymn,
"Where He leads me I will follow, I'll go with Him, with Him, all the
way."
Rachel Winslow looked very beautiful that morning as she stood up
behind the screen of carved oak which was significantly marked with
the emblems of the cross and the crown. Her voice was even more
beautiful than her face, and that meant a great deal. There was a general
rustle of expectation over the audience as she rose. Mr. Maxwell settled
himself contentedly behind the pulpit. Rachel Winslow's singing
always helped him. He generally arranged for a song before the sermon.
It made possible a certain inspiration of feeling that made his delivery
more impressive.
People said to themselves they had never heard such singing even in
the First Church. It is certain that if it had not been a church service, her
solo would have been vigorously applauded. It even seemed to the
minister when she sat down that something like an attempted clapping
of hands or a striking of feet on the floor swept through the church. He
was startled by it. As he rose, however, and laid his sermon on the
Bible, he said to himself he had been deceived. Of course it could not

occur. In a few moments he was absorbed in his sermon and everything
else was forgotten in the pleasure of his delivery.
No one had ever accused Henry Maxwell of being a dull preacher. On
the contrary, he had often been charged with being sensational; not in
what he had said so much as in his way of saying it. But the First
Church people liked that. It gave their preacher and their parish a
pleasant distinction that was agreeable.
It was also true that the pastor of the First Church loved to preach. He
seldom exchanged. He was eager to be in his own pulpit when Sunday
came. There was an exhilarating half hour for him as he faced a church
full of people and know that he had a hearing. He was peculiarly
sensitive to variations in the attendance. He never preached well before
a small audience. The weather also affected him decidedly. He was at
his best before just such an audience as faced him now, on just such a
morning. He felt a glow of satisfaction as he went on. The church was
the first in the city. It had the best choir. It had a membership composed
of the leading people, representatives of the wealth, society and
intelligence of Raymond. He was going abroad on a three months
vacation in the summer, and the circumstances of his pastorate, his
influence and his position as pastor of the First Church in the city--
It is not certain that the Rev. Henry Maxwell knew just how he could
carry on that thought in connection with his sermon, but as he drew
near the end of it he knew that he had at