At the beginning of his ministry he had set this goal before him, that
every soul under his care might see as he saw, and see with him more
clearly year by year, the church's great work; its true and total
business. He had not failed, as the Annual Conference reckons failure.
But he knew he had been less than successful. The people of his
successive appointments were receptive people as church folk go. Then
who was to blame, that sermons and books and Advocates and pictures and
high officials and frequent great assemblies, always accomplishing
something, always left behind them the untouched, unmoved majority of
the people called Methodists?

It was all this and more of the same sort, which at last took shape in
Drury's thought and fixed the manner and matter of the Experiment. This
boy he had found, with a name that might be either prophecy or mockery,
he would study like a book. He would brood over his life. Mind you, he
would take no advantage, use no influence unfairly. He would neither
dictate nor drive. He would not trespass even so far as to the outer
edges of the boy's free personality. For the most part he would stay in
the background. But he would watch the boy, as for lesser outcomes
Darwin watched the creatures of wood and field. Without revealing all
his purpose he would set before this boy good and evil; the lesser good
and the greater. He would use for high and holy ends the method which
the tempter never tires of using for confusion. He would show this boy
the kingdoms of the children of God, and the glories of them, and would
promise them to him, not for a moment's shame but for a life's devotion.

As to the particular form in which the result of the Experiment might
appear he cared little. He had a certain curiosity on the subject
naturally, but he knew well enough that the Experiment would be useless
if he laid interfering hands on its inner processes. That would be like