dressed up slick, some in rough common attire, but most on 'em looked
like good sturdy farmers and their families. The old grand-ma of
ninety with bent form and earnest face, side by side with her great
grand-child.
I myself with Josiah sot down by a large boneded woman with a big,
calm, good-lookin' face. She had on a dress and mantilly of faded
black cashmere; the mantilly wuz wadded, a pink knit woolen scarf wuz
wound loose round her neck, she had a small hat of black straw trimmed
with red poppies, and she wore a pair of large hoop ear-rings. Her
face had the calm and sunshine of perfect peace on it. Her husband, a
small pepper-and-salt iron gray man, with sandy hair and a multitude
of wrinkles, sot by her, and they had a young child elaborately
dressed in red calico between 'em.
Beyond her sot a little slender woman in a stylish dark blue dress and
turban, her face alert and eager, lit with deep gray eyes, had the
passion and zeal of a Luther or Wesley. On the nigh side of me sot two
young girls in pink and white muslin; a father and mother and three
children wuz behind us, and on the seat in front wuz some young men
and two old ones. I hearn the big calm woman say, "I shall be dretful
disappinted if he don't come to-day."
"So shall I," sez the pepper-and-salt man, "I shall feel like turnin'
right round and goin' back home, but I think he is sure to be here."
Bein' temporary neighbors I asked who it wuz that wuz expected.
"Why, the great revivalist and preacher who is expected here to-day."
Sez I, "Who is it?" The woman said she couldn't remember the name, but
he wuz the greatest preacher sence Wesley. He jest went about doin'
good, folks would go milds and milds to hear him, and he drawed their
souls and sperits right along with his fervor and eloquence. He is to
a big meetin' at Burr's Mills to-day, but is expected here for sure.
Two hundred had been converted under him at Burr's Mills. He had been
there a week.
I sez, "Whyee! is that so?"
"Yes," sez the calm woman, and she went on to say, "I hear that he
used to be a wicked man, but had some trouble that made him desperate,
and finally driv him right into the Kingdom, and sence that he can't
seem to work hard enough for the Master."
"Well," sez I, "Saul the scoffer got turned into Paul the apostle, and
that same power is here to-day."
"Speakin' of the power," sez the woman, "two wimmen and a man had the
power last night, one girl lay speechless for hours, and when she come
to said she had been ketched right up into Heaven. She talked
beautiful," sez she.
Sez I calmly, "That's jest what Paul said, he said he wuz caught up to
the Third Heaven."
Sez Josiah, "That power don't come to earth to-day, Samantha."
Sez I, "Who told you it didn't? I hain't hearn on't. Earth hain't no
furder from Heaven now than it wuz then, and the same God reigns."
"Amen," sez the pepper-and-salt man, I see he had zeal and religion,
but I felt kinder flustrated to be "amened" to in public, and I looked
kinder meachin' I spoze, and the calm woman see I did. And she sez:
"Sister Calvin Martin lays there now in her tent with the Power. She
lay there all day yesterday and all night."
Some of the boys before me begun to titter and snicker at anybody's
havin' the power, and I sez, eyein' 'em sternly, "Do you know what
you're laughin' at, young men? You talk about it real glib, but have
you any idee of the greatness and overwhelmin' might of the Force
you're speakin' of? That Power wuz at Pentecost in cloven tongues of
flame, and strange voices and words that no man could utter. Saul
laughed at the Power but it struck him blind in the street, and
ketched him up into the Seventh Heaven. When that Power comes down on
earth, let sinners quail, and saints look on with or and tremblin'."
They looked real meachin'. But jest then the Experience meetin' begun,
and a old man with thin white hair and white whiskers framin' his meek
wrinkled face, come forward, and layin' his hand on the railin' sez in
a kinder tremblin' voice, "Bless the Lord who has made His servant
able to come to this temple in the wilderness, to witness the glory He
has poured down on his people. Every camp-meetin' for years I have
thought would be my last, but bless Him who has preserved me to this
day."
"Yes, bless the Lord! Amen! amen!" wuz shouted on every side, and as
he stopped after a few minutes' exhortation, the other ministers and
some of the old bretheren crowded round the white headed old saint to
shake his hand.
Then a sweet faced little girl in a pink hat got up and said "the Lord
wuz precious to her."
"Amen! amen! Bless His name! He carries the lambs in His bosom!" said
the white headed preacher. Then a pleasant lookin' middle-aged
minister related this incident, "A young boy had been converted, and
said he had a view of Heaven. A onbeliever tried to frighten him and
asked him if he didn't tremble at the thought. Sez the boy, 'My feet
are on the rock.'
"'But don't you tremble?' sez the infidel.
"'Yes,' sez the boy, 'I do, but the rock under my feet don't
tremble.'"
"Oh, Jesus is a rock in a weary land,
A weary land, a weary land--
Oh, Jesus is a rock in a weary land--
A shelter in the time of storm."
High and clear this believin' song floated through our souls--and up
to Heaven.
Then a good lookin' young man arose and sez, "Did you ever hear of the
drunken horse jockey and thief down to Loontown? Well, I'm that man
clothed and in my right mind. The Lord stopped me in my evil course,
and I am His and He is mine."
A bystander sez, "That is so, he is a changed man." Then they all
sung:
"There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Emmanuel's veins;
And sinners plunged beneath its flood
Lose all their guilty stains.
Lose all their guilty sta-ains;
Lose all their guilty sta-ains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains."
That is a melogious chorus, but so kinder floatin' on, and back and
forth, that I don't see how they can ever stop it when they begin. Of
course as wuz natural there wuz some there who wuz bashful and made
mistakes. A tall slim young man got up, he wuz studying for the
ministry, sez he, "My friends, I am a stranger to you all, I am a
stranger to myself, and I trust," sez he, "I am a stranger to my
God."
He left out a "wuzn't," he meant that he wuzn't a stranger to his God.
Bashfulness wuz the cause. Madder red wuz pale compared to his face
when he sot down, and his tongue wuz thick and husky. I wuz sorry for
him. Then a woman riz up with a black bunnet and veil on and white
collar and cuffs; she looked like a Quakeress, and I believe that if
Emperors and Zars had stood before her she would have been onmoved,
she wuz as calm and earnest as Ruth or Esther, or any of our good old
four-mothers. Sez she:
"My friends, I see your faces to-day and watch the different
expressions upon them. How will these faces look when we meet at the
Bar of God? Will peace be on them? Or dismay and everlastin' regret?"
"Oh yes! The Lord help! Let us hear from some one else!" A slight
pause ensued and then there riz up this melogious appealin' old him:
"Shall Jesus bear the cross alone,
And all the world go free?
No, there's a cross for every one,
And there's a cross for me."
A colored boy got up; he wuz tall and gant with big soft eyes full of
the pathetic wisdom and ignorance of his race. He spoke kinder slow
and sez, "I wuz sick once and I felt alone. I wuz afraid to die. Now
if I wuz sick I shouldn't be alone, nor afraid, I've got somebody with
me. Jesus Christ is with me all the time. I hain't lonesome no more,
nor 'fraid."
"Tell your experience, Joe, tell it here!" shouted an old man. Joe
stepped forward, took the Bible offen the rustic stand, turned over
the leaves to the first page, and slowly and laboriously read,
"Darkness was on the face of the earth--and God said, let there be
light--and there wuz light."
He closed the book and looked round with rapt luminous eyes. "That is
me," sez he, "that is my experience."
"Amen! amen!" shouted the brethren. The little refined lookin' woman
in the blue dress started this verse and sung it through almost alone,
in a clear sweet voice:
"I am but a traveller here, Heaven is my home.
Earth's but a desert drear, Heaven is my home.
Time's cold and chilling blast, soon will be over past,
I shall reach home at last, Heaven is my home."
"Amen! amen! Now let us hear from another." And one after another rose
and told of the goodness of God and what He had done for them. The
sweet earnest hims floated out ever and anon and over the place seemed
to brood a Presence that boyed our sperits up as on wings, and I felt
that we wuz there with one accord, and my soul seemed lifted up fur
above Jonesville and Josiah, and all earthly troubles.
All to once a woman rose with a light on her face as if she wuz
lookin' on sunthin' fur above this earth. She delivered a eloquent
exhortation in words of praise and ecstasy. More and more earnest and
eloquent she grew and lifted up from earthly influences. At last she
lifted her hands and stepped out with a swayin' motion of her body, as
if keepin' step to some onhearn melody that ears stuffed with the
cotton of worldliness and onbelief wuzn't fine enough to ketch, and
finally her feet begun to keep step with that mysterious music, that
for all I know might have been soundin' down from the ramparts of the
New Jerusalem. Round and round she slowly swayed and stepped. Wuz it
to the rythm of that invisible music?
There wuz a look on her pure face as if she wuz hearin' sunthin' we
didn't. I wuz riz up and carried away some distance from myself. When
still lookin' up with that rapt luminous face she fell to the ground
as prostrate as Saul did on the road to Jerusalem, and lay in that
state, so I hearn afterwards, for a day and a night. Jest as she fell
that iron gray man yelled out, "Bless the Lord!"
And I sez, bein' all wrought up, "Don't you know when to say that, and
when not to? She might have broke her nose." He looked queer.
In a few minutes I see a stir round the speakers' stand, and knew the
speaker of the day, the great revivalist from the West, had come. And
anon I see a tall noble figger passin' through the crowd that made way
for it reverentially. And lo and behold! I see as I ketched a glimpse
of his profile that it wuz the minister I had hearn at Thousand Island
Park. The same sweet smile rested on his face as he looked round on
his brethren and the crowd before him, some like a benediction, only
more tender like, and a light seemed to be shinin' through his
countenance, ketched from some Divine power.
It wuz the same face I had framed that summer day in the Tabernacle at
T. I. Park, and hung up in my mind right by the side of Isaiah and St.
Paul. Yes, I see agin the broad white forward with the brown hair
mixed with gray thrown back from it kinder careless, his eyes had the
same sweet sad expression, soft, yet deep lookin', and pitiful, as if
he wuz sorry for us and would love to teach us the secret he had found
of how to overcome the world and its sins and sorrows.
His prayer had the same power of lifting us up fur above the world and
settin' down our naked souls in the presence of Him who searcheth the
heart, searchin' and probin' to our consciences, and yet consolin',
puttin' us in mind of that text, "As a father pitieth his children"
and yet wants 'em to mind. It wuz a prayer for help and as if we would
git it.
He read in that same sweet, melogious voice I remembered so well,
Paul's wonderful words about how he wuz led from the blackness of
unbelief up into the Great Light, and how he wuz caught up into the
Third Heaven and saw things so great and glorious that it would not be
lawful for man to speak of them, and where he goes on to tell of his
belief, his hope and his faith. The text wuz Paul's words when he
recalls those divine hours up on the heights alone with God:
"Wherefore not being disobedient to the heavenly vision."
And as he went on, as uplifted as I wuz, I felt fearful ashamed to
think how many times I had been disobedient to the Heavenly vision,
the white ideals that shone out in my mind so high and clear in the
mornin' light, and I wuz so sure I could reach. But havin' set down
to rest in the heat of the day, and bein' drawn off into the shadders
and thickets of environin' cares and perplexities, I didn't git nigh
enough to grasp holt of, and I whispered as much to my pardner.
And he said he felt different, he had always ever sence he sot out
marched right straight towards the Kingdom.
Sez I, "Josiah Allen, hain't you ever meandered at all from that
straight and narrer way?"
"No mom, not a inch, not a hair's breadth." I wuz dumb-foundered by
his conceit as many times as I had witnessed it.
The sermon that follered wuz white and glowin' with the light of
Heaven. You could see that _he_ had not been disobedient to that
Divine vision that had been revealed to him. The deep sweet look of
his eyes told of them supreme heights his own soul had reached.
Upliftin', sympathizin', soul searchin', callin' on the best in every
heart there to rise up and try to fly Heavenward.
His looks and words rousted up my soul and carried me off so fur from
the world and Piller Pint, that I lost sight entirely of the crowd
around me. But anon I hearn a voice at my side and I see Faith had
come back onbeknown to me (she had been in Sister Meechum's tent
mendin' a rent in her dress). But when I looked at her I realized how
the face of St. Stephen looked. It sez, "His face shone like the face
of an angel." Faith's looked jest so, only tears wuz slowly droppin'
from her eyes and runnin' down her white cheeks. Sez I, whisperin' to
her with or in my axents,
"What is it, Faith? What is it, dear? Is it the Power?"
I most knew it wuz, and I wuz mekanically turnin' it over in my mind
what I should do with her if she fell over prostrate, and where I
should lay her out. When she turned, her glowin' awe-struck eyes held
a world of joy and glory in each one on 'em.
"Yes, it is the Power, the power and goodness of God." And she
whispered in blissful axents, "It is Richard, Richard redeemed and
working for my Master."
I see it all, it wuz the lost lover of her youth, I read it in her
face. You could have knocked me down with a clothes-pin aimed by a
infant.
"How come he here?" sez I in a onbelievin' way.
"God sent him!" She whispered. "He sent this blessedness to me, to
know his soul is saved, that he is working for Him."
I felt queer.
That afternoon they met under a ellum tree. He'd found out she wuz
there, and asked for a interview, which I see that she granted him. It
wuz a pretty spot, clost to the water, with trees of droopin' ellums
and some maples, and popples touched with fire and gold. The autumn
leaves made a sort of canopy over their heads, and all round 'em wuz
the soft melancholy quiet of the fall of the year. He stood there
waitin' for her.
"Faith!"
"Richard!"
* * * * *
I don't know how long they stood there, her little cold hands held in
his big warm palms, his eyes searchin' the dear face and findin' a
sacred meanin' in it, and she in hisen. He wuz pale, his voice
trembled like the popple leaves overhead, and visey versey hern.
The settin' sun glowed warm on the face of the water some as his eyes
did, readin' her sweet face, and some of that fire seemed to glow in
his deep blue eyes.
"I had been so wicked, Faith, I had done so much harm, I said I would
never seek my own happiness, I would work only for my fellow
creatures, striving if I might undo some of my evil work, but I see
to-day that I have been an egotist. God would not be offended at my
happiness if I could win the dear woman I have loved all these years.
You have forgiven me, Faith, I see it in your sweet eyes."
[Illustration: "_I don't know how long they stood there, his eyes
searchin' the dear face and findin' a sacred meanin' in
it._" (_See page 347_)]
Agin he paused, and nothin' broke the silence but the murmur of the
blue waters swashin' up on the beach, and furder off through the trees
some belated campers jest drivin' onto the ground sung out with clear
voices,
"God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform."
"He led me here to-day. I had not seen your face for twenty years, but
this morning, at day dawn, I stood at my open window striving to
decide to which place I should go to-day. Through a mistake I was
expected in two places. And as I stood thinking, your face dawned on
my inner vision as plainly as I see it now, and I _had_ to come here,
something told me I must come. He led me here and you also. He has a
meaning in this----shall we read it together, Faith?"
And through the arched vista of autumn leaves they could see that the
sky beyend the Pint gleamed out like a city of golden palaces. They
seemed to be goin' through its gates----into the glory beyend.
End of Project Gutenberg's Samantha at Coney Island, by Marietta Holley