confidence," ther's b'en eight converted, five more convicted, an' six backsliders reclaimed-though, now thet I think on't, I b'lieve Sister Moody tol' me jes' afore the meetin' opened thet Sister Green hed foun' the Lord sence the las' meetin"." 66 Joshua turned inquiringly to Sister Moody, who replied: Yes, me an' Sister Stone hed a long season o' prayer with 'er 's arternoon, an' she got the ev'dince." "Then thet makes nine converted, four more convicted, an' six backsliders reclaimed," said Joshua. "An' to-night ther's b'en five more come out, one on 'em a backslider. "A dozen more stars added to your crown in glory, Brother Granger," answered Mr. Gurley. Then he turned to address the new converts. "There's one thing," he began, "that can't be said too often to these babes in Christ. It's this: Stick to your faith. Faith is everything in religion. Take away faith, and what have you got left? Nothing-just nothing at all. And faith grows like everything else, by exercise. Don't ever dare to question the power, wisdom, justice, mercy, goodness, and love of God. Such questioning is the broad road to doubt, infidelity, and damnation, just as sure as faith is the straight and narrow way to heaven. And them little questions are the easiest and commonest way the Devil has of getting at Christians. Some folks think that text 'Prove all things' means that you can question why your religion is true, and whether it is true. It don't mean any such thing. It means just what it says. It means prove your religion is true, just as you go into court and prove your case. It means get the evidence together, so you can prove your religion to them that don't believe in it. Don't think of the providences of God to doubt or question them, but only to believe in them and rejoice in them. Whatever trials and afflictions and losses you are called to suffer, bow down in meek submission, and remember it's all for your good. The more you suffer here, the happier you'll be in heaven. That's the blessed way God has of evening things up. Always be ready to give up everything-fortune, friends, family, health, life itself, if God so wills it. 66 Give freely of your substance to the Lord. Just think how Christ praised the poor widow who dropped her last two mites into his treasury. The more freely you give here, the greater the treasure you lay up for yourself in heaven, MR. GURLEY'S CHARGE TO THE CONVERTS 33 'where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.' Remember the words of Christ to the rich man, 'sell that thou hast, and give to the poor.' Who is so poor as the poor, ignorant heathen, that knows nothing of God and the atoning blood of Jesus? Forsake the sinful pleasures of the world; not merely such wickedness as dancing, card-playing, rum-drinking, and the like, but such common and dangerous hotbeds of evil as parties and gatherings of young folks jest for pleasure, and above all every form of amusement on the Sabbath day. You who are young in years as well as faith need to be warned to keep away from all places that bring you into the company of unconverted young people. Cultivate soberness and let your thoughts dwell on God and heaven. Seek the society of elderly people, especially them whose souls are steeped in piety and whose conversation is on Godly things. When you are thrown into company, instead of spending the time in mirth and hilarity, join in prayer, and reading the Scriptures or books of sermons. Youth is a time of great danger to the soul, and the Devil is always watching for a chance to take advantage of youthful spirits, if they yield to the sinful but natural desire for worldly pleasure. It's jest that sort of indulgence that will tie your thoughts to earth and make you forget the eternal joys of heaven. "Improve every opportunity to hear the preaching of the word of God, and don't neglect the prayer- and class-meetings, love-feasts, and Sunday-school. Don't expect that you will always feel like going to these places. The heart is perverse and seeks creature comforts and pleasures instead of heavenly joys. The Devil will often tempt you to stay away from religious meetings. Every time you yield makes it ten times as hard to resist the next time. It's just the same with speaking and praying in meeting. Never be afraid or ashamed to own your Savior and to testify to his goodness and love. "Especially never neglect revival meetings. The heart is too weak and prone to sin to stay in the heavenly way, even after conversion, without these seasons of great awakening. Winter offers you time and opportunity to stir the dying embers of Christian love in your souls and start up a fresh blaze. The soul gets sleepy under ordinary, every-day preaching, and it takes good hot revival work to wake it up. "Another thing: You new converts will have to make up your minds what church to join. You may think that don't matter much. If you do feel that way, you're making one of the worst mistakes of your lives. The Presbyterian and Baptist and Episcopal creeds are full of false doctrine calculated to confound and mislead the unwary young convert; and they've sent many a soul to hell. Some of their ministers may get after you sometime. Now, don't think that because a man's a minister he's always a safe guide. Remember that— He sometimes uses his servants to compass the downfall of the wicked. Remember the story of Ahab, and how God made his prophets to lie, that Ahab might be overthrown. God still uses ministers in this way to accomplish his ends. And then,how many servants of the Devil wear the livery of heaven! There's John Calvin. Ah God! what hellish heresies that man handed down to his poor, deluded followers-foreordination, election, infant damnation, and all the rest! You'll find no such doctrines in the Methodist Episcopal church. And lastly, I'll say what I said first: Stick to your faith. Don't think, like the benighted wild Indians that used to roam these hills and valleys, that being good and treating your neighbors right will take you to heaven whether you've got any religion or not. I tell you, it's faith and nothing else that can save you. All else is vain hope, delusion, a pitfall and a snare. "And may God bless you kingdom, for Christ's sake. When the echoes of the hymn was sung— 66 all and save you at last in his Amen." amen" had subsided, another "O happy day that fixed my choice Then Mr. Shore arose to deliver the last call to sinners. It was not expected that any others would come forward, but it was hoped that some might be persuaded to give a less conspicuous demonstration of religious feeling by standing up as a token that they wished to be especially remembered in the prayers of Christians. PAUL UNDER CONVICTION 35 "It grieves me inexpressibly," said Mr. Shore, "to see some here who still refuse to take the decisive step and enroll themselves in the army of God's followers. But I hope and pray that they may not go away to-night without giving some sign of repentance. If you have not yet the courage to come boldly to the front, then take a smaller step. Let us know in some way that you believe on Christ and want religion." Mr. Shore continued exhorting in this strain for several minutes. CHAPTER 5 PAUL GRANGER MAKES A START MEANTIME another episode was ripening, a small one, however, compared with that which Higley Doom had brought on; so small, indeed, that not a third of the congregation noticed it, and but three or four persons felt more than a passing interest in it. Yet it was one of the milestones in Paul Granger's life. Ever since he could remember he had attended these yearly revivals at the Sugar Hill schoolhouse. Each succeeding winter the revival had made a deeper impression upon him; not a religious impression, not such an impression as the revivalists desired to produce upon unconverted sinners, but an impression such as ghost stories, and tales of the Black Man, and the Bears, and the Giants, and sundry other bugaboos of childhood produce upon the young mind; throwing him into a state of general and particular terror of everything and nothing, and peopling his slumbers with ugly monsters that left him in the morning unrefreshed in body or mind. The meetings this winter had preyed on his mind more than ever before; not because there had been anything in the meetings or the sermons, up to this particular night, more terrifying than usual, but because his developing mind more fully grasped the situation and the meaning of it all. His sleeping hours had been more disturbed than before. During the meetings he sat as one momentarily expecting to witness some horrible tragedy or some bloodcurdling apparition. Any sudden noise-the rattling of a window by the blast, the flickering of a candle by a gust of wind, the loud shuffling of somebody's feet-made him start, tremble, and look about quickly for the cause. On such occasions he would not have been surprised, and could not have been much worse scared, had he seen Satan come up through the floor or fly in through the closed window, horns, hoofs, forked tail, and all. His mind was in a state of most painful tension and every fiber in his body! seemed strained almost to the point of breaking. But though he had been so frightened by the awful pictures nightly held up before him of hell, the Devil, and the tortures of the damned, he had never felt that he was called on to do anything or that the message was in any way directed to him personally. He knew that he had been baptized in infancy, and his father being an exhorter and his mother such a pious, good woman, he vaguely supposed that he had a place in the ark of safety along with the family. His mother had read and reread to him the two or three books in the Sunday-school library (which consisted of about a dozen volumes in various advanced stages of decay and dilapidation, locked up in the little cupboard under the chimney in the back end of the schoolhouse) about good little boys who died young, one of them at six years of age, and said such beautiful things before they died, and were so glad to leave this sinful world and go to live with Jesus. He had sometimes envied these fortunate little boys and almost wished he too could die and have a nice story written about him. But when Mr. Gurley spoke of having been convicted of sin at the age of six years, it suddenly came over Paul that he had never yet been either convicted or converted; that he must therefore be a miserable sinner; and that if he should die without getting religion he would be forever lost and would float around in that lake of fire ever so much hotter than the water he had watched boiling on the kitchen stove at home. His heart thumped away till it seemed about to burst through his jacket. His breath came quick and short. His eyes were fastened on Mr. Gurley as though held by a serpent's charm. Every word the minister uttered after that came to Paul as a direct personal warning. Mr. Gurley's statement that it made him "shiver" to think that he had been in danger of hell for years because he didn't get religion when he was seven or eight |