. Will you share this divine peace
with me? Will you come with me this night to the foot of the cross?...
Then come now--now--for this may be the accepted hour of your
salvation.... Come.... If you wait, you are lost ... lost!"

But these simple, broken words are only the cold and lifeless echo of
Peter Cartwright's fiery, living eloquence. Nothing can ever bring that
back as it really was. None may hope to tell those who never heard him
what it was like. No one, perhaps among the numberless thousands who did
hear him, ever knew what the power was, by which this unlettered
backwoodsman swayed multitudes at his will. Perhaps David afterward
described it as nearly as any one could, when he said that the mere
sound of Peter Cartwright's voice that night--when he could not hear the
words--made him feel so sorry, so grieved, so ashamed, that he wanted to
fall down on the earth and hide his face and weep like a woman, for his
own sins and the sins of the whole world.

"There she is!" cried the doctor. "We can reach her now."

But another roaring wave of humanity dashed over them, sweeping them
farther from Ruth and nearer the pulpit. They were so near that they
could see the fire that flashed over the pale darkness of the young
preacher's face as his brother preacher bent down for the second time
and touched him warningly, and whispered again. Peter Cartwright, who
was still bending over the men and women lying at his feet, suddenly
stood erect. He threw back his long black hair, and flung a flaming
glance at the tall man leaning against the pillar. And then his voice
rang out like a trumpet calling to combat.

"What if it _is_ General Jackson?" he cried. "What is Andrew Jackson but
a sinner, too? Let him come with the rest of these poor sinners to beg
for pardon before the throne of grace. And let him make haste--or a just
and offended God will punish him as if he were the lowest of earth!"

The challenge sounded clear and far. It must have reached the ears of
Andrew Jackson, the proud and feared hero of many battles. No man living
was more intolerant of indignity or quicker to resent the slightest
affront. An alarmed murmur circled through all the tumult; the doctor
and David heard it distinctly, and turned with those about them to look
at the man thus challenged. But Andrew Jackson himself stood quite still
and gave no sign that he had heard. He barely bowed his head when a
short, thick-set man pressed through the crow