“No,” said Maxwell. “The world has never measured him. It needs to study the Gospels, constantly asking the question, ‘Could I do that?’”

“Thank God he is here!” whispered Virginia. “He will put new life into his church.”

“And at the same time he will necessarily provoke much hatred and opposition,” said Rollin. “Men like this Bardeau and women like this notorious Avonarina will not submit to have their ambitions and purposes thwarted without trying to create some form of resistance. No doubt that will develop this into something serious.”

“Yes, and men like Jasper Carter are enraged at Jesus because he is a constant rebuke to their selfish purposes and methods. They will not endure his rule if they can help it.”

“We saw Mr. Carter at the Wall Street gathering,” Stanton said after a while. “His face expressed fear, hate, and a baffled look, as if he were possessed both with a desire to break into the secret of Jesus’s power, and with a feeling of helplessness at the sight of it. I could not help but pity the man.”

“Carter will never be satisfied until he has succeeded, as he told Barnes, in unmasking Jesus as a fraud. And he can never succeed. Poor fellow! Why, as Barnes says, does he not love instead of hate him?”

“Why, indeed? Ask all the centuries the same question, all those who have crucified him and said, ‘We will not have this man to rule over us.’ It is the world struggle against the Deity. Why do men keep it up? He will draw all men unto himself at last.”

At the very moment when the friends of Raymond were talking about him, Jasper Carter was still in New York, staying there beyond the time he had at first planned to be absent, not settled in his own mind as to his reason for remaining after the Editors’ Convention had adjourned and most of the newspapermen had left the city.

He stayed with an old friend, Roswald Drake, a broker and financier. Drake lived with his family at the Plaza, and was housed in a suite of rooms that cost a small fortune to rent and keep up. He himself was satisfied with his regular meat and drink diet of money, but Mrs. Drake and her daughters had greater ambitions. Drake himself, with the careless indifference of some rich men, deferred to his wife when the yielding did not break over into his own plans or disturb too seriously his money ambitions. He had been present with Carter at the Wall Street appearance of Jesus, and had discussed every phase of that meeting. Drake did not agree with Carter that Jesus was simply a skillful hypnotist with an unusual gift for influencing the mob. Drake was a great admirer of power.