"I said: 'Well, I guess I'll go around to see him.' I found the fellow seated in a chair teetered back against the wall, smoking. I said: 'Is this Mr. Champenoy?' 'Yes, sir, that's my name.' He got up and took me by the hand. I said: 'My name is Sunday; I'm down at the church preaching. A good many have been talking to me about you and I came down to see you and ask you to give your heart to God.' He looked at me, walked to the cupboard, opened the door, took out a half-pint flask of whisky and threw it out on a pile of stones.
"He then turned around, took me by the hand, and as the tears rolled down his cheeks he said: 'I have lived in this town nineteen years and you are the first man that has ever asked me to be a Christian.'
"He said: 'They point their finger at me and call me an old drunkard. They don't want my wife around with their wives because her husband is a drunkard. Their children won't play with our babies. They go by my house to Sunday school and church, but they never ask us to go. They pass us by. I never go near the church. I am a member of the lodge. I am a Mason and I went to the church eleven years ago when a member of the lodge died, but I've never been back and I said I never would go.'
"I said: 'You don't want to treat the Church that way. God isn't to blame, is he?'
"'No.'
"'The Church isn't to blame, is it?'
"'No.'
"'Christ isn't to blame?'
"'No.'
"'You wouldn't think much of me if I would walk up and slap your wife because you kept a dog I didn't like, would you? Then don't slap God in the face because there are some hypocrites in the Church that you don't like and who are treating you badly. God is all right. He never treated you badly. Come up and hear me preach, will you, John?'