The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1907-01-30

finding his audience IT last falling
into line, he lost no chance to drive
his arguments home. Then, when the
field looked promising, he changed
his tactics to the saving blood Of the
Lamb, the sudden regeneration by
going down into the baptismal waters
black and cankered with sin and
coming up whittier than snow; urging
repentance for the sinner, restitu-
ton for the backslider and the
Mourners' Bench for all.
Leaning far over the pulpit and
fixing the congregation with his eye
Every foot in this house." he an
nounced, solemnly, in awesome
tones. lis on the brink of eternity
Every step you take in sin brings
you nearer, nearer, nearer the yawn-
ing chasm of hell. Every step. my
brethren, young and old alike, is
plunging you over the precipice of
eternal damnation. l see you march
ing before me in single file, in twos,
in families, in companies. toward
eternity, your heads turned to the
pleasures Of this world, your. feet
slipping down, down, DOWN. into
hell"
Slowly, under the power of his
personality, the congregation was be-
coming affected, and at each new
slide Of his verbal stereoptican of the
Inferno, they fell more and more
under the spell OF his magnetic force,
even the Penningtonites began to
wonder If they were right in holding
out so obstinately for their own way.
Faces throughout the audience grew
white and began to work nervously.
little tongues of blue hell-fire began
to shoot up the spines Of the hysteri-
cally-inclined sisters, eyes grew tense
and wide as the speaker pictured the
uncertainty Of life, the certainty of
death, and the inevitableness Of
eternal damnation for the unsaved.
The time was now arrived for the
invitation to the Mourners Bench.
In loud, commanding tones those
who were convicted of possessing
sinful hearts, those who wanted to
live better lives and taste the joys of
conscious salvation, those who had
once known those joys and had
baekslidden therefrom, those who
hoped to escape the wrath Of God on
that awful judgment day, were in
vited to go forward and fill the altar
rail.
Miss Sallie, looking into the strain
ed, upturned faces before her, saw
the Pennington cause losing ground.
And while we gather around the
altar rail we will sing, There Is a
fountain filled with blood" Brother
Broadside announced, turning to the
choir
Here again Miss Sallie saw her
opportunity. The nodding roses on
her hat had grown very still as she
sat rigid and upright watching the
effect of Brother Broadside's dis
course. Springing quickly to her
place, she flung her soul into leading
her lost cause on to victory. With a
renewed resolve to do or die, she
turned to the number. The scales
not only balanced between the two
candidates, but were heavy in the
out the congregation showed a pre-
paration to start for the Mourners'
Bench when the invitation should
be given, subdued little sniffles on
the bombazine side portended the
floods of penitential tears to be re-
leased at the altar rail, the counter
ances of loyal Penningtonites, white
and set, announced a sudden deter
mination to escape the terrible wrath
of God by a prompt, watery plunge
into salvation.
A few sudden, sharp staccato
chords struck the straining ears of
the congregation. Many Of the
younger, more impressionable ones
came to themselves with a sudden
start, and looked about them with
strange eyes.
The opening bars rang out the
good, old-fashioned orthodox strain
cen moto, but the next movement
glanced off into something SUSPECT
ously akin to a quickstep. The "old-
fogy" faction did not grasp the ma
ture of the NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
ed" music being, as they confessed
out of their line-but some of the
younger members Of the congrega-
ton did, and gasped with the shock.
1t was only an instant's depression,
however, then the air idled back