Early in January was the Annual College Y. M. C. A. Week of Prayer. It was a countrywide event, but in Terwillinger College it was of especial power that year because they were privileged to have with them for three days none other than Judson Roberts, State Secretary of the Y. M. C. A., and a man great personally as well as officially.
He was young, Mr. Roberts, only thirty-four, but already known throughout the land. He had always been known. He had been a member of a star University of Chicago football team, he had played varsity baseball, he had been captain of the debating team, and at the same time he had commanded the Y. M. C. A. He had been known as the Praying Fullback. He still kept up his exercise—he was said to have boxed privily with Jim Jeffries—and he had mightily increased his praying. A very friendly leader he was, and helpful; hundreds of college men throughout Kansas called him "Old Jud."
Between prayer-meetings at Terwillinger, Judson Roberts sat in the Bible History seminar-room, at a long table, under a bilious map of the Holy Land, and had private conferences with the men students. A surprising number of them came edging in, trembling, with averted eyes, to ask advice about a secret practice, and Old Jud seemed amazingly able to guess their trouble before they got going.
He was very manly and jolly:
"Well, now, old boy, I'll tell you. Terrible thing, all right, but I've met quite a few cases, and you just want to buck up and take it to the Lord in prayer. Remember that he is able to help unto the uttermost. Now the first thing you want to do is to get rid of—I'm afraid that you have some pretty nasty pictures and maybe a juicy book hidden away, now haven't you, old boy?"
How could Old Jud have guessed? What a corker!
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