the hymn out as Octavius
had never heard it before.

While its echoes were still alive, the woman began speaking again.
"Don't sit down!" she cried. "You would stand up if the President of the
United States was going by, even if he was only going fishing. How much
more should you stand up in honor of living souls passing forward to
find their Saviour!"

The psychological moment was upon them. Groans and cries arose, and
a palpable ferment stirred the throng. The exhortation to sinners
to declare themselves, to come to the altar, was not only on the
revivalist's lips: it seemed to quiver in the very air, to be borne on
every inarticulate exclamation in the clamor of the brethren. A young
woman, with a dazed and startled look in her eyes, rose in the body of
the church tremblingly hesitated for a moment, and then, with bowed head
and blushing cheeks, pressed her way out from the end of a crowded
pew and down the aisle to the rail. A triumphant outburst of welcoming
ejaculations swelled to the roof as she knelt there, and under its
impetus others followed her example. With interspersed snatches of song
and shouted encouragements the excitement reached its height only when
twoscore people, mostly young, were tightly clustered upon their knees
about the rail, and in the space opening upon the aisle. Above the
confusion of penitential sobs and moans, and the hysterical murmurings
of members whose conviction of entire sanctity kept them in their seats,
could be heard the voices of the Presiding Elder, the Soulsbys, and
the elderly deacons of the church, who moved about among the kneeling
mourners, bending over them and patting their shoulders, and calling
out to them: "Fasten your thoughts on Jesus!" "Oh, the Precious Blood!"
"Blessed be His Name!" "Seek Him, and you shall find Him!" "Cling to
Jesus, and Him Crucified!"

The Rev. Theron Ware did not, with the others, descend from the pulpit.
Seated where he could not see Sister Soulsby, he had failed utterly to
be moved by the wave of enthusiasm she had evoked. What he heard her say
disappointed him. He had expected from her more originality, more spice
of her own idiomatic, individual sort. He viewed with a cold sense of
aloofness the evidences of her success when they began to come forward
and abase themselves at the altar. The instant resolve that, come what
might, he would not go down there among them, sprang up ready-made in
his mind. He saw his two companions pass him