John Wesley, Jr. | Page 8

finding it agreeable to assume a superior air concerning the
Institute. The impression the boys gave was that their coming to the
Institute at all had been a great concession, but that they were under no
illusions about the place.
"All this is all right," Joe was saying, "for those who need it, but what's
the good of it all to us? For instance, what do you get out of it,

Marcia?"
"What do you think I want to get out of it? If you cared for the young
people's work at home, I should think you could see how 'all this,' as
you call it, would help you to do better work and more of it at
Delafield."
"As you ought to know pretty well, Marcia," Joe replied, "back home
they think I don't care much for the young people's work. It is a little
too prim and ready-to-wear for me, if you'll excuse me for saying so.
No fun in it at all, though I'll admit some of the classes here have more
life in them than I looked for."
One of the other girls, who knew him well enough to speak with large
frankness, came to the defense of them all, saying: "Well, Joe, I don't
see that you get very far with what you call fun. It's mostly at the
expense of other people, including your father, who pays the bills.
Besides, since you came home from college this spring, you seem to
have run out of nearly all the bright ideas you started with. I wonder if
it ever strikes you that being a sport, as you call it, is mostly being a
nuisance to everybody? Some of us long ago got over thinking you
clever and original. You must be getting over it yourself, by now,
surely."
"Many thanks, dear lady, for them kind words," Joe responded, as he
bowed low in mock acknowledgment; "you make yourself quite plain,
Miss Alma Wetherell." He flung back the insult jauntily, as he and his
companions moved on, but at least one of the group suspected that the
words had struck home.
You who know the General Secretary could easily forgive J.W. his
delight in the class of which the program said the subject was
"Methods." This is the only hour in an Institute which the Epworth
League takes for its own work. Rightly enough, it is a crowded hour,
with the whole Institute present, and usually it is an hour of unflagging
interest.
J.W. and Marty were enjoying their first Institute too much to be late at

any classes. They were merely a little earlier at this class; to miss any
of it would be a distinct loss.
Now, what the General Secretary talked about was no more than the
everyday work of the League--how it meant the young people of the
church and their work for and with young people for the sake of the
future. But he had a way with him. He said the League was a great
scheme of self, with the "ish" left off. In the League one practiced
self-help, and enjoyed the twin luxuries of self-direction and
self-expression, and came sooner or later to that strange new
knowledge which is self-discovery. He explained how Epworthians as
such could live on twenty-four hours a day, the plan being an ingenious
and yet simple financial arrangement for keeping the League work
moving, both where you are and where you aren't, even around the
world. He had innumerable stories of the devotional meeting idea, the
Win-My-Chum idea, the stewardship idea, the Institute idea, the life
service idea, the recreation idea, the study-class idea, and every other
League idea so far invented.
But all this is merely a hint of what the General Secretary meant to the
Institute, and particularly to the delegates from Delafield. Even Joe
Carbrook had been impressed. He heard the General Secretary the
morning after that little exchange of compliments on the library steps,
and for an hour thereafter let himself enjoy the rare luxury of thinking.
The results were somewhat disconcerting.
"It's funny," said Marty, as the four of them, the other three being Joe,
Marcia, and J.W., sat under a tree in the afternoon, "but I believe that
man could make even trigonometry interesting. I thought I'd heard all
that could be said about the devotional meeting; but did you get that
scheme for leaders he sprung this morning? Watch me when we get
back home, that's all."
"You needn't suppose you are the only one who got it," said Marcia.
"Everybody was trying to watch the General Secretary and to take
notes at the same time, and I don't believe you are any quicker at that
than the rest of us. Of course all of us will use as