le. After that he prayed all around each one so
fervently that those who had been hit the very worst cried aloud and
said: "Amen!" You wouldn't think any one could do a thing like that;
but I heard and saw my father do it.

When he arose the tears were running down his cheeks, and before him
stood Leon. He was white as could be, but he spoke out loudly and
clearly.

"Please forgive me, sir; I didn't intend to hurt your feelings. Please
every one forgive me. I didn't mean to offend any one. It happened
through hunting short verses. All the short ones seemed to be like
that, and they made me think----"

He got no farther. Father must have been afraid of what he might say
next. He threw his arms around Leon's shoulders, drew him to the seat,
and with the tears still rolling, he laughed as happily as you ever
heard, and he cried: "'Sweeping through the Gates!' All join in!"

You never heard such singing in your life. That was another wonderful
thing. My father didn't know the notes. He couldn't sing; he said so
himself. Neither could half the people there, yet all of them were
singing at the tops of their voices, and I don't believe the angels in
Heaven could make grander music. My father was leading:

"These, these are they, who in the conflict dire----"

You could tell Emanuel Ripley had been in the war from the way he
roared:

"Boldly have stood amidst the hottest fire----"

The Widow Fall soared above all of them on the next line; her man was
there, and maybe she was lonely and would have been glad to go to him:

"Jesus now says, 'Come up higher----'"

Then my little mother:

"Washed in the blood of the Lamb----"

Like thunder all of them rolled into the chorus:

"Sweepin, through the gates to the New Jerusalem----"

You wouldn't have been left out of that company for anything in all
this world, and nothing else ever could make you want to go so badly as
to hear every one sing, straight from the heart, a grand old song like
that. It is no right way to have to sit and keep still, and pay other
people money to sing about Heaven to you. No matter if you can't sing
by note, if your heart and soul are full, until they are running over,
so that you are forced to sing as those people did, whether you can or
not, you are sure to be straight on the way to the Gates.

Before three lines were finished my father was keeping time like a
choirmaster, his face all beaming with shining light