urned eyes, an upward sweep of his arm, and
trumpet-voice, he shouted, "Hallelujah to God!" the tide of emotion
broke over all barriers, the people rose to their feet, and the church
reechoed with their responsive hallelujahs. The new preacher from Texas
that night gave some Californians a new idea of evangelical eloquence,
and took his place as a burning and a shining light among the ministers
of God on the Pacific Coast.

"He is the man we want for San Francisco!" exclaimed the impulsive B. T.
Crouch, who had kindled into a generous enthusiasm under that marvelous
discourse.

He was sent to San Francisco. He was one of a company of preachers who
have successively had charge of the Southern Methodist Church in that
wondrous city inside the Golden Gate--Boring, Evans, Fisher,
Fitzgerald, Gober, Brown, Bailey, Wood, Miller, Ball, Hoss, Chamberlin,
Mahon, Tuggle, Simmons, Henderson. There was an almost unlimited
diversity of temperament, culture, and gifts among these men; but they
all had a similar experience in this, that San Francisco gave them new
revelations of human nature and of themselves. Some went away crippled
and scarred, some sad, some broken; but perhaps in the Great Day it may
be found that for each and all there was a hidden blessing in the
heart-throes of a service that seemed to demand that they should sow in
bitter tears, and know no joyful reaping this side of the grave. O my
brothers, who have felt the fires of that furnace heated seven times
hotter than usual, shall we not in the resting-place beyond the river
realize that these fires burned out of us the dross that we did not know
was in our souls? The bird that comes out of the tempest with broken
wing may henceforth take a lowlier flight, but will be safer because it
ventures no more into the region of storms.

Fisher did not succeed in San Francisco, because he could not get a
hearing. A little handful would meet him on Sunday mornings in one of
the upper-rooms of the old City Hall, and listen to sermons that sent
them away in a religious glow, but he had no leverage for getting at the
masses. He was no adept in the methods by which the modern sensational
preacher compels the attention of the novelty-loving crowds in our
cities. An evangelist in every fiber of his being, he chafed under the
limitations of his charge in San Francisco, and from time to time he
would make a dash into the country, where, at camp-meetings and on other
special occas