"Hallelujah!" he exclaimed.
"What for?" I demanded coldly.
He gave some stammering reply. But that was the beginning of the end of his spiritual peace in our house. After that I consistently punctured his ecstasies, quoting some of the sternest Scriptures I could remember to confound him.
William remonstrated with me. He said Dunn said my lack of spirituality "depressed him."
"And, William, his lack of reverence incenses me. If you don't get rid of that cotton haloed evangelist everybody in this town will claim a 'blessing' without repenting or being converted," I replied.
Fortunately Dunn dismissed himself. He said that it was impossible to have a revival in such an atmosphere. He implied as plainly as he could that he was sorry for William, accepted the sum of ten dollars which had been promised him for his services and left.
I have never known what to think of such preachers. No one who ever knew one can doubt his sincerity. But they cultivate a kind of spiritual idiocy and frenzy that is more damaging to souls than any amount of hypocrisy.
I have always been thankful that the joy of William in the religious life was a stern and great thing, no more resembling this lightness, this flippancy than integrity resembles folly.