In His Steps - New Abridged Editon

by Charles M Sheldon

  "I went to bed tormented with what I now know to be the divine arrows of conscience. I could not sleep. I seemed to see the Judgment Day. I was placed before the Judge. I was asked to give account of my deeds done in the body: How many sinful souls had I visited in prison? What had I done with my stewardship? How about those tenements where people froze in winter and stifled in summer? Did I give any thought to them, except to receive the rentals? Where did my suffering come in? Would Jesus have done as I had done and was doing? Had I broken my pledge? How had I used the money and the culture and the social influence I possessed? I had received much. How much had I given?

  "All this came to me in a waking vision as distinctly as I see you two men and myself now. I was unable to see the end of the vision. I had a confused picture in my mind of the suffering Christ pointing a condemning finger at me, and the rest was shut out by mist and darkness. The first thing I saw this morning was the account of the shooting at the coal yards. I read the account with a feeling of horror I have not been able to shake off. I am a guilty creature before God."

  Penrose paused. The two men looked at him solemnly. What power of the Holy Spirit moved the soul of this hitherto self-satisfied, elegant, cultured man, who belonged to the social life that was accustomed to go its way, placidly unmindful of the great sorrows of a great city, and practically ignorant of what it means to suffer for Jesus' sake?

  Into that room came a breath such as before swept over Henry Maxwell's church and through Nazareth Avenue. The bishop laid his hand on the shoulder of Penrose and said, "My brother, God has been very near to you. Let us thank Him."

  "Yes, yes!" sobbed Penrose. He sat down on a chair and covered his face.

  The bishop prayed. Then Penrose quietly said, "Will you go with me to that house?"

  For answer, both Dr. Bruce and the bishop put on their overcoats and went out with him to the home of the dead man's family. This was the beginning of a new and strange life for Clarence Penrose. From the moment he stepped into that wretched hovel of a home, and faced for the first time in his life a despair and suffering such as he had read of, but did not know by personal contact, he started a new life.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  ONE AFTERNOON, just as Felicia came out of the Settlement with a basket of food which she was going to leave as a sample with a baker in the Penrose district, Stephen Clyde opened the door of the carpenter shop in the basement and came out of the lower door, in time to meet Felicia as she reached the sidewalk.

  "Let me carry your basket, please," he said.

  "Why do you say 'please'?" asked Felicia, handing over the basket.

  "I would like to say something else," replied Stephen, glancing at her shyly, and yet with a boldness that frightened him, for he had been loving Felicia more every day since he first saw her, and especially since she stepped into the shop that day with the bishop, and for weeks now they had been in many ways thrown into each other's company.

  "What else?" asked Felicia innocently, falling into the trap.

  "Why..." said Stephen, turning his face full towards her, and eyeing her with the look of one who would have the best of all things in the universe, "... I would like to say, 'Let me carry your basket, dear Felicia.'"

  Felicia walked on a little way without even turning her face towards him.

  It was no secret with her own heart that she had given it to Stephen some time ago. Finally she turned and said shyly, while her face grew rosy and her eyes tender, "Why don't you say it, then?"

  "May I?" cried Stephen, and he was so careless for a minute of the way he held the basket, that Felicia exclaimed, "Yes, but oh, don't drop my goodies!"

  "Why, I wouldn't drop anything so precious for all the world, dear Felicia," said Stephen, who now walked on air for several blocks.

  The basket never reached its destination, and over in the other direction, late in the afternoon, the bishop, walking along quietly in a rather secluded spot near the outlying part of the Settlement district, heard a familiar voice say, "But tell me, Felicia, when did you begin to love me?"

  "I fell in love with a little pine shaving just above your ear, that day I saw you in the carpenter's shop!" said the other voice, with a laugh so clear that it did one good to hear it.

  The next moment, the bishop turned the corner and came upon them. "Where are you going with that basket?" he tried to say sternly.

  "We're taking it to... Where are we taking it, Felicia?"

  "Dear Bishop, we are taking it home to begin..."

  "To begin housekeeping with," finished Stephen, coming to the rescue.

  "Are you?" said the bishop. "I hope you will invite me in to share. I know what Felicia's cooking is."

  "Bishop, dear Bishop," said Felicia, and she did not pretend to hide her happiness; "you shall always be the most honored guest. Are you glad?"

  "Yes, I am," replied the bishop, interpreting Felicia's words as she wished. Then he paused a moment and said gently, "God bless you both," and went his way with a prayer in his heart, and left them to their joy.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  A LITTLE after the love story of the Settlement became a part of its glory, Henry Maxwell of Raymond came to Chicago. He brought with him Virginia Page, her brother Rollin with his fiancée Rachel Winslow, Alexander Powers, and Donald Marsh from Lincoln College. The occasion was a remarkable gathering at the hall of the Settlement, arranged by the bishop and Dr. Bruce who had finally persuaded Mr. Maxwell and his fellow disciples of Raymond to be present at this meeting.

  The bishop invited the representatives of all the city's worst, most hopeless, most dangerous, depraved elements into the Settlement Hall meeting for that night. And still the Holy Spirit moved over the great selfish, pleasure-loving, sin-stained city, and it lay in God's hand, not knowing all that awaited it. Every man and woman at the meeting that night had seen the Settlement motto over the door, blazing through the transparency set up by the divinity student: "What would Jesus do?"

  And Henry Maxwell, as for the first time he stepped under the doorway, was touched with a deeper emotion than he had felt in a long time. He thought of the first time that question had come to him in the appeal of the shabby young man who had appeared in the First Church of Raymond at the morning service.

  Was his great desire for Christian fellowship going to be granted? Would the movement begun in Raymond actually spread over the country? He had come to Chicago with his friends, partly to see if the answer to that question would be found in the heart of the great city life.

  Henry Maxwell left the meeting very late. He went to his room at the Settlement where he was stopping, and after an hour with the bishop and Dr. Bruce, sat down to think over again, by himself, all the experience he was having as a Christian disciple.

  He kneeled to pray, as he always did now before going to sleep, and it was while he was on his knees this night that he had a waking vision of what might be in the world, when once the new discipleship had made its way into the conscience and consciousness of Christendom.

  He saw himself, going back to the First Church in Raymond, living there in a simpler, more self-denying fashion than he had yet been willing to observe, because he saw ways in which he could help others who were really dependent on him for help.

  He also saw, more dimly, that the time would come when his position as pastor of the church would cause him to suffer more, on account of growing opposition to his interpretation of Jesus and His conduct. But this was vaguely outlined. Through it all he heard the words, "My grace is sufficient for thee."

  He saw Rachel Winslow and Virginia Page going on with their work of service at the Rectangle, and reaching out loving hands of helpfulness far beyond the limits of Raymond. Rachel, he saw married to Rollin Page, both fully consecrated to the Master's use, both following in His steps with an eagerness intensified and purified by their love for each other. And Rachel's voice sang on in the slums and dark places of despair and sin, and drew lost souls back to God and heaven once
more.

  He saw Donald Marsh of the college, using his great learning and his great influence to purify the city, to inspire the young men and women who loved as well as admired him to live lives of Christian service, always teaching them that education means great responsibility for the weak and the ignorant.

  He saw Alexander Powers of the railroad, meeting with trials in his family life, with a constant sorrow in the estrangement of wife and friends, but still going his way in all honor, seeing and living in all the strength of God, the Master whom he had obeyed even to loss of social distinction and wealth.

  He saw Milton Wright, the city merchant, meeting with great reverses; thrown upon the future by a combination of circumstances, with vast business interests involved in ruin through no fault of his own, but coming out of all his reverses with clean Christian honor, to begin and work up to a position where he could again be an example to hundreds of young men of what Jesus would be in business.

  He saw Edward Norman, editor of the News, by means of the money given by Virginia, creating a force in journalism that in time came to be recognized as one of the real factors of the nation, to mold its principles and actually shape its policy, a daily illustration of the might of a Christian press, and the first of a series of such papers begun and carried on by other disciples who had also taken the pledge.

  He saw the novelist Jasper Chase, who had denied his Master, growing into a cold, cynical, formal life, writing novels that were social successes, but each one with a sting in it, the reminder of his denial, the bitter remorse that, do what he would, no social success could remove.

  He saw Rose Sterling, dependent for some years upon her aunt and Felicia, finally married to a man far older than herself, accepting the burden of a relationship that had no love in it on her part, because of her desire to be the wife of a rich man and enjoy the physical luxuries that were all of life to her. Over this life also the vision cast dark shadows, but they were not shown to him in detail.

  He saw Felicia and Stephen Clyde happily married, enthusiastic, joyful in suffering, pouring out their great, strong, fragrant service into the dark, terrible places of the great city, and redeeming souls through the personal touch of their home dedicated to the human sickness all about them.

  He saw Dr. Bruce and the bishop going on with the Settlement work. He seemed to see the great blazing motto over the door enlarged, "What would Jesus do?" And the daily answer to that question was redeeming the city in its greatest need.

  He saw Burns and his companion and a great company of men like them, redeemed and going in turn to others, conquering their passions by the divine grace, and proving by their daily lives the reality of the new birth, even in the lowest and most abandoned.

  And now the vision was troubled. It seemed to him that as he kneeled he began to pray, and the vision was more of a longing for a future than a reality in the future. The Church of Jesus in the city and throughout the country. Would it follow Jesus? Was the movement begun in Raymond to die away as a local movement, a stirring on the surface, but not to extend deep and far?

  He felt with agony after the vision again. He thought he saw the Church of Jesus in America open its heart to the moving of the Holy Spirit and rise to the sacrifice of its ease and self-satisfaction, in the name of Jesus. He thought he saw the motto, "What would Jesus do?" inscribed over every church door, and written on every church member's heart.

  And he thought, in the faces of the young men and women, he saw future joy of suffering, loss, self-denial, martyrdom. And when this part of the vision slowly faded, he saw the figure of the Son of God beckoning to him and to all the others in his life history.

  There was a sound as of many voices and a shout as of a great victory. And the figure of Jesus grew more and more splendid. He stood at the end of a long flight of steps. "Yes! Yes! Oh, my Master, break upon the Christendom of this age with the light and the truth! Help us to follow Thee all the way!"

  He rose at last, with the awe of one who has looked at heavenly things. He felt the human forces and the human sins of the world as never before. And with a hope that walks hand in hand with faith and love, Henry Maxwell, disciple of Jesus, laid him down to sleep, and dreamed of the regeneration of Christendom, and saw in his dream a Church of Jesus "not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing," following Him all the way, walking obediently in His Steps.

  THE END

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