Then a good lookin’ young man arose and sez, “Did you ever hear of the drunken horse jockey and thief down to Loontown? Well, I’m that man clothed and in my right mind. 339 The Lord stopped me in my evil course, and I am His and He is mine.”
A bystander sez, “That is so, he is a changed man.” Then they all sung:
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“There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins; And sinners plunged beneath its flood Lose all their guilty stains. Lose all their guilty sta-ains; Lose all their guilty sta-ains; And sinners plunged beneath that flood Lose all their guilty stains.” |
That is a melogious chorus, but so kinder floatin’ on, and back and forth, that I don’t see how they can ever stop it when they begin. Of course as wuz natural there wuz some there who wuz bashful and made mistakes. A tall slim young man got up, he wuz studying for the ministry, sez he, “My friends, I am a stranger to you all, I am a stranger to myself, and I trust,” sez he, “I am a stranger to my God.”
He left out a “wuzn’t,” he meant that he wuzn’t a stranger to his God. Bashfulness wuz the cause. Madder red wuz pale compared to his face when he sot down, and his tongue wuz thick and husky. I wuz sorry for him. Then a woman riz up with a black bunnet and veil on 340 and white collar and cuffs; she looked like a Quakeress, and I believe that if Emperors and Zars had stood before her she would have been onmoved, she wuz as calm and earnest as Ruth or Esther, or any of our good old four-mothers. Sez she:
“My friends, I see your faces to-day and watch the different expressions upon them. How will these faces look when we meet at the Bar of God? Will peace be on them? Or dismay and everlastin’ regret?”
“Oh yes! The Lord help! Let us hear from some one else!” A slight pause ensued and then there riz up this melogious appealin’ old him:
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“Shall Jesus bear the cross alone, And all the world go free? No, there’s a cross for every one, And there’s a cross for me.” |
A colored boy got up; he wuz tall and gant with big soft eyes full of the pathetic wisdom and ignorance of his race. He spoke kinder slow and sez, “I wuz sick once and I felt alone. I wuz afraid to die. Now if I wuz sick I shouldn’t be alone, nor afraid, I’ve got somebody with me. Jesus Christ is with me all the time. I hain’t lonesome no more, nor ’fraid.” 341
“Tell your experience, Joe, tell it here!” shouted an old man. Joe stepped forward, took the Bible offen the rustic stand, turned over the leaves to the first page, and slowly and laboriously read, “Darkness was on the face of the earth—and God said, let there be light—and there wuz light.”