t instantly
John Larkin arose and gave out that comforting invitation hymn:

"Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of pity, love, and power.
He is able,
He is willing, doubt no more."

He asked all those who wanted to repent of their sins and to seek
pardon and peace to come forward to the altar while the congregation
stood and sang that hymn.

The result was astonishing. In spite of the crowded condition of the
room men and women pushed their way to the wooden benches called an
"altar," and with tears and groans sought forgiveness. Decisions were
made that night as lasting as eternity. Many a hardened backwoods
sinner there forever forsook his evil ways and became an order-loving
and respectable citizen, helping to form that civilization of which the
Kentucky of today is so proud. Several moonshiners were convicted of
the iniquity of their business, and gave up illicit distilling and
their other bad practices. Among the rest was Long Tom. He sought the
Lord with the simplicity of a little child. As he made no reservations,
but at once confessed all his evil deeds, and was both wise and simple
enough to accept Christ at his own terms of full surrender and
childlike faith, he soon found pardon and peace. While he bowed at the
altar the people sang "Jesus Lover of My Soul," and its sentiments
comforted the sobbing man. The clearest voice which led in this hymn
was that of Viola LeMonde.

At a testimony meeting a short time after he told of his experience:
"Friends, I war a mighty ignorant feller when I come for'ard to that
mourner's bench. I had not said a prayer for twenty years. I did not
know how to begin. Then I thought of a prayer my mother larned me when
I war a little chap. So I began saying, 'Our Father, who art in
heaven,' and before I got through I war saved."

But while some were convicted of the error of their ways at that
meeting, others were hardened; for such a meeting is either a savior of
life unto life, or a savior of death unto death. Sam Wiles sat, as we
have said, near the open door. During the first part of the discourse
he followed the preacher closely and calmly; but when Jasper Very
entered upon his philippic against the moonshiners in particular, an
awful struggle began in Wiles' heart. God's Spirit acted strongly upon
him, convincing his judgment that all the preacher said was true, that
the whole