In League with Israel: A Tale of the Chattanooga ConferenceJohnston, Annie F. (Annie Fellows)
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In League with Israel: A Tale of the Chattanooga Conference
Johnston, Annie F. (Annie Fellows)
Epworth League (U.S.) -- Fiction
Nearer and nearer he came. The crowd at the door pushed harder. The
fresh impetus jostled them almost off their feet, and in the crush
Lessing was caught and held directly in front of David. Some magnetic
force in the eyes of each held the gaze of the other for a moment. Then
Lessing, recognizing the common bond of blood, smiled.
That ringing cry, "I am a converted Jew," had sounded in David's ears
ever since it first startled him. He felt confident that the man was
laboring under some strong delusion, and he wished that he might have an
opportunity to dispel it by skillful arguments, and win him back to the
old faith.
Seized by an impulse as sudden as it was irresistible, he laid his hand
on the stranger's arm.
"I want to speak with you," he said, hurriedly, and in a low tone. "Come
this way. I will not detain you long."
He drew him out of the press into one of the side aisles, and thence
towards the exit.
"Will you walk a few steps with me?" he asked; "I want to ask you
several questions."
Lessing complied quietly.
The sound of a cornet followed them with the pleading notes of an old
hymn. It was like the mighty voice of some archangel sounding a call to
prayer. Then the singing began. Song after song rolled out on the night
air across the common to a street where two men paced back and forth in
the darkness. They were arm in arm. David was listening to the same
story that Bethany and Frank Marion had heard the day before. He could
not help but be stirred by it. Lessing's voice was so earnest, his faith
was so sure. When he was through, David was utterly silenced. The
questions with which he had intended to probe this man's claims were
already answered.
"We might as well go back," he said at last. As they walked slowly
towards the tent, he said: "I can't understand you. I feel all the time
that you have been duped in some way; that you are under the spell of
some mysterious power that deludes you."
Just as they passed within the tent, the cornet sounded again, the
great congregation rose, and ten thousand voices went up as one:
"All hail the power of Jesus' name,
Let angels prostrate fall!"
The sight was a magnificent one; the sound like an ocean-beat of praise.
Lessing seized David's arm.
"That is the power!" he exclaimed. "Not only does it uplift all these
thousands you see here, but millions more, all over this globe. It is
nearly two thousand years since this Jesus was known among men. Could he
transform lives to-night, as mine has been transformed, if his power
were a delusion? What has brought them all these miles, if not this same
power? Look at the class of people who have been duped, as you call it."
He pointed to the platform. "Bishops, college presidents, editors, men
of marked ability and with world-wide reputation for worth and
scholarship."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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