For Ben Doaks was there, the first to respond to the earnest exhortations to the sinners to come forward. He had a shamefaced look as he shambled up and took his seat on the mourners’ bench, while the little dog sat unnoticed at the other end. Doaks was quick, however, to observe that one of the preachers eyed him sharply, and spoke to another, who shook his head with a gesture indeed of negation, but an expression of reluctant affirmation, and he felt sure that they recognized how often he had sat there, and that they were saying to each other that it was of no use,—he was evidently rejected by grace.
Now and then low voices sounded in the midst of the singing,—the Christians urging those convicted of sin to go up and be prayed for. Others came forward. There was more stir than before; a vivid curiosity was on many faces turning about to see who was going up, who was resisting entreaty, who ought to be convicted of sin, being admirably supplied with obliquity of which to repent.
Pete Rood sat, his black eyes on the ground, intent, brooding, deeply grave. Elvira Crosby thought at first that he affected to overlook her. Then, with a sinking of the heart, she realized that indeed he did not see her. The tears welled up to her eyes. The past was not to be recalled. When was he ever before unaware of her presence? He had been so eager, so devoted, so unlike the capricious lover for whom she had lightly flung him away. It was all over, though. She looked about her to divert her mind, to preserve her composure. She noted Mrs. Sayles in the congregation, identifying her by her limp sun-bonnet. Mrs. Sayles had long been saying that she intended to put splints in it some day when time favored her; but it still hung over her eyes, obscuring her visage, except her mouth, as she sang, and she was an edifying spectacle of a disregard of earthly pomps and a lack of vain interest in baubles and bonnets. Alethea’s face, like some fair flower half enfolded in its sheath, was visible in the funnel-shaped depths of her own brown bonnet, with a glistening suggestion of her gold hair on her forehead, and one escaped tress hanging down beneath the curtain on her dark brown homespun dress. She did not sing, and she looked downcast.
In the aisle between the two benches reserved for the mourners the brethren were crowding, talking individually to the contrite sinners, sometimes with such effect that sobs and tears broke forth; and then the hymn was renewed, with the rhythmic sound of the clapping of hands, while the thunder crashed and the forked lightnings darted through the sky. The lurid scenic effects added their impressiveness to the terrible word-painting of another preacher, who was less interesting though not less efficient than that gentle old man, Brother Jethro Sims. He described hell with an accurate knowledge of its topography, its personnel, and its customs, which was a triumph of imagination, and made one feel that he had surely been there. A young woman suddenly broke into wild screams, shouting that she had found her salvation, and clapping her hands, and crying, “Glory!” finally fainting, and being borne out into the rain.
In the aisles they all often knelt, praying aloud in turns: sometimes, the voice of one failing in a whispered Amen! another would cry out insistently, “Let us continue the supplication!” And once more the prayer would go up.
There were no more conversions. Over and again the brethren announced in pious dudgeon that it was a stubborn meeting, and hell gaped for the sinner. It was evidence of the sincerity of the mourners, and their anxiety not to deceive themselves and others, that they could thus resist the urgency of the impassioned appeals, that with quivering nerves they could still withhold all demonstrations of yielding until the spirit should descend upon them.
Presently persons who desired the prayers of the congregation were requested to rise and make known their wish. It might be feared that some of the compliances did not tend to preserve domestic harmony. One woman asked prayers for her husband, whose heart, she stated, was not in his religion, and the defiant contradiction expressed in the face of a man seated beside her suggested that she had thus publicly made reprisal for sundry conjugal differences. Nevertheless, old Brother Sims said, “Amen!” Mrs. Sayles rose and begged prayers for the “headin’ young folks o’ the kentry, that they’d be guided by thar elders, an’ not trest thar own green jedgmints, an’ finally be led ter grace.” And all the old people said, heartily, “Amen!” Many turned to look at Alethea, whose face had become a delicate pink.
And suddenly Peter Rood rose. “I want the prayers o’ the godly,” he said, now and then casting a hasty glance at Brother Sims, who stood listening intently, his chin in the air, his hands arrested in the gesture of clapping, “fur light ter my steps. I reckon I’m a backslider, fur I git no light when I pray. It’s all dark,—mighty dark!” His voice trembled. He was beginning to lose his self-control. “My actions tarrify me! I ’lowed wunst I hed fund grace, but in trouble I hev no helper.”
The lightnings flashed once more. The swift illumination seemed to blanch his swarthy face, and lighted his uplifted black eyes with a transient gleam. “I’m in sin an’ great mis’ry. I hev done wrong.” He was about to sit down.
“Make reparation, brother, an’ free yer soul in prayer,” said the old man.