“Martha says he told her things about her life that no one but herself could possibly know.”

Grey’s face filled with intense interest. “Yes, he spoke to her after the meeting. It seemed to me he spoke to everyone in the room personally. And on the way home tonight, he said things to me that simply astounded me because they revealed such an intimate knowledge of my own history and attitudes.”

“Do you suppose this person, whom you are so sure is Jesus, would preach for us next Sunday? What are his plans? What will he do? What is his purpose? It is all too bewildering to entertain. We do not know how to approach him.”

“Approach him!” Grey exclaimed, while his eyes flashed with an indescribable exultation. “He is the most approachable person I ever met. There is not a particle of pride or aloofness about him. He is the most companionable person I ever met.”

“Why not? Is that not what we expect in Jesus?” Stanton’s deep voice spoke. “Would he be Jesus if he were not the most companionable person Grey or any of us ever met?”

“The whole thing is beyond belief!” Maxwell cried out. “I have been longing for this very thing for years. Now that it has come, if it has, I feel unable to comprehend it.”

“Don’t try to comprehend it, Mr. Maxwell. Just enjoy it,” said Martha, who sometimes revealed a depth of thought that made Mr. Maxwell wonder in what school she had learned it.

“Then we can see Jesus at your house in the morning?” Maxwell turned to Grey as all the others had done.

“Yes. There is one thing he definitely said. He will visit churches and his disciples everywhere. How long he may stay in Raymond, I don’t know. But that is his first purpose. He has come to comfort and encourage his own flock.”

Everyone was too worked up over the great event of the evening to feel sleepy, but Grey finally went home, and Stanton went along to his hotel. Rachel, Virginia, Dr. West, and Felicia and Stephen soon went away. Alexander Powers and Mr. Norman stayed a little longer. Norman was especially excited, as a newspaperman, over all the future possibilities of events from the standpoint of an editor and journalist.

“Maxwell,” he said, talking in his regular, steady manner, but with a deep undercurrent of excitement, “if this unparalleled event is true, it opens up a most tremendous field for change. I am especially concerned over what may occur in the newspaper world. It will be the greatest sensation of centuries. And how will the sensation-loving and sensation-providing press treat it? It is unthinkable to subject our Master to the coarse and vulgar buffoonery and irreverence of the press that considers nothing sacred and nothing private in one’s own personal life. I am simply aghast when I try to imagine what will happen.”

Henry Maxwell was very pensive. His initial excitement had given way to a profound seriousness. Finally he said, “Edward, don’t you think we can leave all that to him? Do you doubt he will know what to do under all circumstances, just as he did when he came before?”