"Oh, I'd be only too glad to help in any way I know how, but that is so little," she said bashfully.
"We will start only in a small way. I have thought it best to begin with my congregation. I have been to them all, and have already secured liberal subscriptions, all of whom paid a part of it in cash. This I will employ as a means of stimulating others. So Sunday, at three P.M., I will lecture on it and ask subscriptions, detailing first those who have already subscribed."
"What is my balance, please," inquired Mildred the next afternoon, at the window of the paying teller.
"One hundred fifty," said the cashier, who looked surprised.
"I wish to withdraw it. And you may make it into a draft, payable to the colored Y.M.C.A."
His mouth opened slightly. He regarded her with a different look, and then did as she instructed.
A fairly good crowd greeted Wilson Jacobs, when he got up to speak on the proposed campaign for a colored Y.M.C.A. To cheer the listeners, he asked Miss Latham to play and sing the song she had practiced, and which was new to the congregation. She did so, with all the art of which she was capable, and was pleased, when she turned to face the audience, that she had given both pleasure and satisfaction. Her eyes wandered over them for a moment, and then rested upon someone she had seen before.
"Where was it," she mused, in a half whisper. Wilson Jacobs was speaking. For two hours he spoke in behalf of the Christian forward movement. He made plain in so many ways, the urgent need of such, and did this eloquently. He arraigned the high murder record, which made all of those before him feel alarmed. The time for some united effort was necessary. Eventually something had to be done. Plenty of churches, it was true, were open; but churches were arranged for worship, and not for clean sport, pool, billiard, gymnasiums and other amusements in which young men might indulge, would indulge, and did indulge; but in so many ways and places, that were not conducted in a Christian manner.