The most intense excitement has begun to sweep through the city. Congressman Walters has come out with an astonishing story of meeting Jesus yesterday and talking with him while going to his office from the Capitol, immediately after the passage of the interstate commerce bill regulating the shipment of liquor into dry states. It is said Jesus was in the gallery of the House all the afternoon, and when the bill was passed, but that he was not recognized.

There were three or four columns more, but nothing additional that could be called “news,” as Carter understood the “padding” process. He threw the paper down and brooded.

All the world has gone after him . . . And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men . . . God is no respecter of persons. Scraps of Bible verses learned when a boy swung through his memory now.

Jesus went to a Negro prayer meeting? Stayed with a Negro preacher all night? In Washington? Of all acts, wouldn’t that turn off the general public? Could even Jesus himself afford to do a thing like that and retain his influence with Washington people of standing?

And yet, why shouldn’t he appear in a Negro prayer meeting if he wanted to? Or sleep in a Negro preacher’s house if invited? Was there anything wrong about a simple thing like that?

Carter grimly foresaw the mingled anger and disgust and scorn with which such a fact might be received. Yet did not Jesus come to save all the people? Was not his advent at the first for all the people? Was it not true that God had made of “one blood” all people? Was it not the most natural thing in the world for Jesus to do just what he did?

He found growing in his heart and mind an additional feeling of admiration for this man. Grimly he was forced to acknowledge something that instinctively made him bend the knee, and he knew that nothing could prevent him from joining the mob out in front of the YMCA building that morning to catch a glimpse of that figure, now towering up over him, compelling his instant thought, making it impossible for him to attend to his business, whispering to him in a tone of thunder:

Follow me!

But would he finally yield? And if so, when and where? Had he not missed the supreme opportunity when Jesus passed him yesterday and they had been alone? What chance would there be now that he was plunged into his tremendous public ministry and the vast multitudes all around him? How could he give any time to individuals? Had Carter not acted the fool when he passed Jesus so insolently, as if he were a stranger?

The whisper of Jesus as he went by was insistent:

Follow me!

Follow me!