. I saw great,
strapping fellows trembling and weeping like children at the
"mourners' bench." His warnings to sinners were truly terrible. I
shall never forget one expression that he used, which for originality
and aptness could not be excelled. In my opinion, it is more graphic
and, for us, far more expressive than St. Paul's "It is hard to
kick against the pricks." He struck the attitude of a pugilist and
thundered out: "Young man, your arm's too short to box with God!"

Interesting as was John Brown to me, the other man, "Singing Johnson,"
was more so. He was a small, dark-brown, one-eyed man, with a clear,
strong, high-pitched voice, a leader of singing, a maker of songs, a
man who could improvise at the moment lines to fit the occasion. Not
so striking a figure as John Brown, but, at "big meetings," equally
important. It is indispensable to the success of the singing, when
the congregation is a large one made up of people from different
communities, to have someone with a strong voice who knows just what
hymn to sing and when to sing it, who can pitch it in the right key,
and who has all the leading lines committed to memory. Sometimes it
devolves upon the leader to "sing down" a long-winded or uninteresting
speaker. Committing to memory the leading lines of all the Negro
spiritual songs is no easy task, for they run up into the hundreds.
But the accomplished leader must know them all, because the
congregation sings only the refrains and repeats; every ear in the
church is fixed upon him, and if he becomes mixed in his lines or
forgets them, the responsibility falls directly on his shoulders.

For example, most of these hymns are constructed to be sung in the
following manner:

Leader. _Swing low, sweet chariot._
Congregation. _Coming for to carry me home._
Leader. _Swing low, sweet chariot._
Congregation. _Coming for to carry me home._
Leader. _I look over yonder, what do I see?_
Congregation. _Coming for to carry me home._
Leader. _Two little angels coming after me._
Congregation. _Coming for to carry me home...._

The solitary and plaintive voice of the leader is answered by a sound
like the roll of the sea, producing a most curious effect.

In only a few of these songs do the leader and the congregation start
off together. Such a song is the well-known "Steal away to Jesus."

The leader and the congregation begin with part-singing:

_Steal away, steal away,
Steal away to Jesus;