full of
Christian force, that the blacksmith began to tremble on his knees, the
two hands that had been clenched like sledge-hammers clasped themselves,
till the palms met and were uplifted to Heaven as a child pleads with
its mother.

"By and by another voice--hoarse, deep, and earnest--joined with the
prayer of Brother Blank. All that it said was, 'God be merciful to me a
sinner;' but that was enough, for there was that stout old reprobate
with his face to the earth, his broad chest swelling with repentance,
and great tears making furrows through the cinders and ashes on his
cheeks, penitent as a child, and meek as a spring lamb.

"When Brother Blank saw this, his feelings came forth in a grateful
shout, tears leaped down his own cheeks, and in one voice these two men
thanked God for the soul that had been saved."

When the man with green spectacles had finished his story, he took out a
silk handkerchief from the crown of his hat and wiped his own eyes;
then turning to the Sugar-scoop, says he:

"Let this encourage you to persevere to the end, for 'while the lamp
holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return.' If this person is
hardened in the perversity of a depraved nature, think of the
blacksmith, and do not despair."

"Did that heathen blacksmith hold out?" says I, so interested in the
cindery wretch that I passed over his comments about my perversity.

"Hold out!" says he; "I saw him at a camp-meeting three years after, and
heard him tell the story with his own lips. Brother Blank himself was
sitting on the speaker's stand, and the blacksmith pointed him out to
the people, and called on him to say if it was not his prayers that had
snatched him as a brand from the burning.

"Brother Blank got up and walked with a lazy motion down the platform.
Putting both hands behind him he smiled benignly down on the agitated
face of his old enemy. Then he looked around on the congregation, and
spoke:

"'Yes,' says he, 'I really do believe that I was the humble instrument
of mauling some grace into that precious brother's soul.'

"Sisters, that was a glorious moment for Brother Blank; think of it--a
human soul turned heavenward in the midst of its wrath; persevere with
this one. Leave her not till she is brought to the anxious-seat, and so
by regeneration to membership with the church."

"But I am a Church member," says I.

"A Church member?" says the man with spectacles.

"Certainly," says I.

"In good stan