latform sat the teachers. In the most prominent chair, with
its plush seat and its old-fashioned peaked back, sat the
evangelist-manufacturer, Rask,--the shine of hungry fanaticism in his
face like a beacon, his legs crossed, a dazzling shine on his shoes,
his hands clutching a hymn book like a warrior's weapon.

Little Principal Stanton stood nearby, his eyes gleaming spectrally
through his glasses, his teeth shining like those of a miniature
Roosevelt.

"We will begin," he snapped decisively, "with John Moreton's favourite
hymn, when he was with us in this world."

We rose and sang, "There is a green hill far away--"

Then there were prayers and hymns and more prayers, and a lengthy
exhortation from Rask, who avowed that if it wasn't for God in his heart
he couldn't run his business the way he did; that God was with him every
hour of his life,--and oh, wouldn't every boy there before him take the
decisive step and come to Christ, and find the joy and peace that
passeth understanding ... he would not stop exhorting, he asserted, till
every boy in the room had come to Jesus....

And row by row,--Rask still standing and exhorting,--each student was
solicited by the seniors, who went about from bench to bench, kneeling
by sinners who proved more refractory ... the professors joined in the
task, led by the principal himself.

Finally they eliminated the sheep from the goats by asking all who
accepted the salvation of Christ to rise. In one sweep, most of the boys
rose to their feet ... some sheepishly, to run with the crowd ... but a
few of us were more sincere, and did not rise ... it was at these that
the true fire of the professors and seniors was levelled.

They knelt by us. They prayed. They agonised. They groaned. They adjured
us, by our mothers, to come to Jesus ... all the while, over and over
again, softly, was sung, "O Lamb of God, I come, I come!"

"Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me!"

Weakening under the pressure, and swung by the power of herd-instinct,
most of us "came."

Then there was the hypnotism of the enthusiasm which laid hold of us.
It was indescribable in its power. It even made me want to rise and
declare myself, to shout and sing, to join the religious and emotional
debauch.

When chapel adjourned at ten o'clock many had been cajoled and bullied
into the fold. Then, still insatiable for religion, at the villas and
halls, the praying and hymn-singin