Pursuing the plan he had originally mapped out when he came to Milton, he spent much of his time in the afternoons studying the social and civic life of the town.

As the first Sunday of the next month drew near, when he was to speak again on the attitude of Christ to some aspect of modern society, he determined to select the saloon as one of the prominent features of modern life that would naturally be noticed by Christ, and doubtless be denounced by him as a great evil.
In his study of the saloon question he did a thing which he had never done before, and then only after very much deliberation and prayer.

He went into the saloons themselves on different occasions.

He had never done such a thing before.

He wanted to know from actual knowledge what sort of places the saloons were.