their jeering interruptions
and lewd levity of conduct, brought upon the scene a kind of visible
personal devil, with whom the chosen could do battle face to face. The
daylight services became more and more perfunctory, as the sojourn in
the woods ran its course, and interest concentrated itself upon the
night meetings, for the reason that THEN came the fierce wrestle with
a Beelzebub of flesh and blood. And it was not so one-sided a contest,
either!

No evening passed without its victories for the pulpit. Careless or
mischievous young people who were pushed into the foremost ranks of the
mockers, and stood grinning and grimacing under the lights, would of
a sudden feel a spell clamped upon them. They would hear a strange,
quavering note in the preacher's voice, catch the sense of a piercing,
soul-commanding gleam in his eye--not at all to be resisted. These
occult forces would take control of them, drag them forward as in a
dream to the benches under the pulpit, and abase them there like
worms in the dust. And then the preacher would descend, and the elders
advance, and the torch-fires would sway and dip before the wind of the
mighty roar that went up in triumph from the brethren.

These combats with Satan at close quarters, if they made the week-day
evenings exciting, reacted with an effect of crushing dulness upon the
Sunday services. The rule was to admit no strangers to the grounds
from Saturday night to Monday morning. Every year attempts were made to
rescind or modify this rule, and this season at least three-fourths of
the laymen in attendance had signed a petition in favor of opening
the gates. The two Presiding Elders, supported by a dozen of the older
preachers, resisted the change, and they had the backing of the more
bigoted section of the congregation from Octavius. The controversy
reached a point where Theron's Presiding Elder threatened to quit the
grounds, and the leaders of the open-Sunday movement spoke freely of the
ridiculous figure which its cranks and fanatics made poor Methodism cut
in the eyes of modern go-ahead American civilization. Then Theron Ware
saw his opportunity, and preached an impromptu sermon upon the sanctity
of the Sabbath, which ended all discussion. Sometimes its arguments
seemed to be on one side, sometimes on the other, but always they were
clothed with so serene a beauty of imagery, and moved in such a lofty
and rarefied atmosphere of spiritual exaltation, that it was impossi