Chapter 4

The church at which Deacon Quickset worshipped was not large, nor was it ever well filled when prayer and experience were the only attractions. When Sam Kimper entered, however, the place seemed so immense and the throng so great that nothing but the bulk of the deacon, which had been prudently placed in the rear of the new convert, kept him from turning about and escaping into the darkness. Even when placed in a seat the outer end of which was occupied by the deacon, the frightened man cast his eyes appealingly towards his keeper,--for such was the relation he felt the deacon bore towards him. Finally he slipped slowly along the seat and whispered,--

"Deacon, I can't speak; I can't think of a word to say. It's a shame to have a fellow like me talkin' to good church-members about what they know more about than him."

"You'll have to acknowledge Him before men, Samuel, if you expect Him to acknowledge you."

"Well, I hain't any objections to ownin' up to ev'rybody I know. Didn't I tell you an' the judge? Didn't I tell Nan and the children? I ain't seen anybody else yet, or I'd told them too. But I can't say nothin' to a crowd like this; I don't know how."

"He'll give you words, Samuel, if you've got the right heart in you."

"Is that a dead-sure thing?"

"Certainly."

Further argument and protest were ended by the formal opening of the meeting. It appeared to the deacon that the first hymn was sung with more sound and spirit than usual, and on looking around he saw the cause: it was literally a "packed house,"--the first one the church had ever known on a prayer-meeting night. The deacon immediately let his own voice out a little more, for he felt personally complimented by the large attendance. He had told a number of persons of Sam's conversion and of his own intention to have the man "put himself on record" before a number of witnesses; evidently this word had gone about and caused the great gathering.

Prayers, hymns, and short speeches and confessions succeeded one another for a little while, and the deacon, glancing aside frequently, saw his charge look more and more uncomfortable, helpless, and insignificant as the exercises continued. This would not do; should the fellow become thoroughly frightened, he might not be able to say anything; this would be disappointing to the assemblage, and somewhat humiliating to him who had announced the special attraction of the evening. Sam's opportunity must come at once; he, the deacon, did not doubt that his own long experience in introducing people to the public in his capacity of chairman of the local lecture committee would enable him to present Sam in a manner which would strengthen the weak knees and lift up the feeble heart.

"Brethren," said the deacon, arising during the closing cadence of a hymn, "the consolations of our blessed religion often reach a man in most unexpected ways, and we have among us to-night a living example of it. One of our fellow-citizens who left us, against his will, I may say, about two years ago, found the pearl of great price in the cell of a prison. He has come here to-night to testify to the hope that is within him. He feels that he is weak and halting of speech, but, blessed be the spirit of our Master, that makes all of us brothers, it does not take eloquence or superfluity of words to let out anything that the heart is full of. I ask the attention and sympathy of all present for our brother Samuel Kimper."

As the deacon sat down he put his powerful arm under the shoulder of his companion, and Sam Kimper found himself upon his feet. The frightened man looked down at the cushion of the seat in front of him; then he tried to look around, but there was so much hard curiosity in each face upon which his eyes fell that he speedily looked down again and leaned heavily upon the back of the bench upon which his hands rested. Finally he cleared his throat and said,--

"Ladies an' gentlemen, I've been in State prison nearly two years. I deserved it. Lots of folks talked kind to me before I went; some of 'em's here to-night, an' I thank 'em for what they done. A good many of 'em talked religion to me, but the more they talked the less I understood 'em. I guess 'twas my fault; I never had much head-piece, while some of them had. But when I was in the prison a man come along that talked to me about Jesus like I never was talked to before. Somehow I could understand what he was drivin' at. He made me feel that I had a friend that I could foller, even if I didn't keep up with him all the time, owin' to things in the road that I hadn't knowed about. He told me if I'd b'lieve in Jesus as I b'lieved in Andrew Jackson, I'd pull through in the course of time. I've been tryin' to do it, an' while I was in the jail I got lots of new idees of how I ort to behave myself, all from a little book that man left me, that didn't have nothin' in it but Jesus' own words. I'm a-goin' to keep on at it, an' if I can't live that way I'm goin' to die a-tryin'. I b'lieve that's all I've got to say, ladies and gentlemen."

There was an awkward silence for a moment after Sam sat down. The minister in charge of the meeting said afterwards that the remarks were not exactly what he had expected, and he did not know, at such short notice, how to answer them. Suddenly a hymn was started by a voice which every one knew, though they seldom heard it in prayer-meeting. It belonged to Judge Prency's wife, who for years had been the mainstay of every musical entertainment which had been dependent upon local talent. The hymn began,--

Am I a soldier of the cross,

and the assemblage sang it with great force and spirit. The meeting was closed soon afterwards; and as Sam, in spite of an occasional kind greeting, was endeavoring to escape from the hard stare of curious eyes, Mrs. Judge Prency, who was the handsomest and most distinguished woman in the village, stopped him, grasped his hand, and said,--

"Mr. Kimper, you gave the most sensible speech I ever heard in an experience meeting. I'm going to believe in you thoroughly."

Deacon Quickset, who was closely following his new charge, listened with fixed countenance to the lady's remark. He followed Sam from the church, snatched him away from the wife who had joined him, and said,--

"Samuel, that experience of yours rather disappointed me. It wasn't all there. There was something left out,--a good deal left out."

"I guess not, deacon. I said all I knowed."

"Then you ought to know a good deal more. You've only got at the beginning of things. No church'll take you into membership if you don't believe more than that."

"Maybe I'll know it in the course of time, deacon, if I keep on a-learnin'."

"Maybe you will,--if you do keep on. But you didn't say anything about your hope of salvation, nor the atonement, nor your being nothing through your own strength."

"I couldn't say it if I didn't know about it," Sam replied. "All my troubles an' wrong doin's have come of not livin' right: so right livin' is all I've had time to think about an' study up."

"You need to think about dying as well as living," said the deacon.

"Him that took care of another thief that was dyin' 'll take care of me if I get in that fix, I guess, if I hang on to Him tight."

"Not unless you hang on in the right way," said the deacon. "You must believe what all Christians believe, if you want to be saved. You don't feel that you're prepared to die, do you?"

"I felt it a good many times, deacon, when I was in that jail; an' sometimes I half wished I could die right away."

"Pshaw!" muttered the deacon. "You don't understand. You're groping in darkness. You don't understand."

"That's so, deacon, if you mean I don't understand what you're drivin' at."

"Don't you feel Christ in you the hope of glory?"

"I don't know what you mean, deacon?"

"Don't you feel that a sacrifice has been made to atone for your sins?"

"I can't follow you, deacon."

"I thought not. You haven't got things right at all. You haven't been converted: that's what's the matter with you."

"Do you mean, Deacon," said Sam, after a moment, "that what I'm believin' about Jesus is all wrong an' there ain't nothin' in it?"

"Why, no; I can't say that," the deacon replied, "but--but you've begun wrong end first. What a sinner needs most of all is to know about his hereafter."

"It's what's goin' on now, from day to day, that weighs hardest on me, deacon. There's nothin' hard about dyin'; leastways, you'd think so if you was built like me, an' felt like I have to feel sometimes."

"You're all wrong," said the deacon. "If you can't understand these things for yourself, you ought to take the word of wiser men for it."

"S'posin' I was to do that about everythin': then when Judge Prency, who's a square man an' a good deal smarter than I be, talks politics to me, I ought to be a Republican instead of a Jackson Democrat."

"No," said the deacon, sharply, for he was a Jackson Democrat himself. "I'll have to talk more to you about this, Samuel. Good night."

"Good night, deacon."

"He knows more'n you do about religion," said Mrs. Kimper, who had followed closely behind, and who rejoined her husband as soon as the deacon departed.

"He ought to, seein' his head-piece an' chances; an' yet I've heerd some pooty hard things said about him."

When the couple reached home, Sam looked at the long heap of straw and rags on which his children should have been sleeping, but which was without occupant except the baby. Then, by the light of the coals still remaining in the fire-place, he looked through some leaves of the little book which the prison visitor had given him. When he arose from the floor, he said to himself,--

"I'll stick to Him yet, deacon or no deacon,--stick to Him as if He was Andrew Jackson."