The room was filled with people and a meeting was in progress, during which two men, old neighbors, whose lives I knew well, told the story of their recent conversion. One was Skipper Andrew Woodbury, a man of blameless life, but who had lived sixty-five years without religion. The other was my uncle by marriage, twenty years my senior, a close personal friend and familiarly called "Dave." I had been in the habit of spending many of my Sundays with him, as he was a non-church goer, companionable, genuine and open-hearted as the day. It was evident that he had found something that he wanted to share with his friends, and while I made light of it at the time, his testimony made a profound impression on me. Toward the close of the meeting the leader gave the invitation to those "who want to become Christians" to rise. No one stood up. Then he came within closer range and invited those "who would like to become Christians," but still no one responded. I was becoming interested and was almost disappointed when no one answered to this second invitation. Then he put up the proposition to those "who _have no objections_ to becoming Christians." "He will get a lot of them on this call," I said to myself, but to my surprise, no one stirred. "Well," I thought, "this is too bad, but why couldn't I help him out? I have no objections to becoming a Christian," and I stood up. I slipped out of the meeting ahead of the crowd, but in my room that night before I went to bed, I found myself on my knees, trying to pray. I did not succeed very well. "Oh, what's the use?" I said, "there's nothing in it." But I lay awake far into the night, thinking, feeling the beating of my heart, wondering what kept it going and "what if it should stop suddenly?" But in less than a day these impressions had passed. I laughed them off and kept on in my own way. For six weeks I steered clear of Dave, but I did not want to lose his friendship, and then, too, I was rather curious to find out what, if anything, he had really discovered. So, one Sunday morning in early April, I drifted down to his home, as I had done so many times before. I stopped at my father's house on the way, and after a short visit, went on to Dave's. It was a pleasant morning, and I left my overcoat at home, as I had but a short distance to go. Dave lived in a beautiful old farmhouse near the shore, overlooking the harbor, and our Sunday program had been walking along the beach, or sitting around the house smoking, eating apples, drinking cider and killing time in the most unconventional way possible. "It's too bad," I thought, "that Dave has got religion, it spoils all our good times"; but I was hoping to find him less strenuous on the subject than when I had heard him in the chapel six weeks before. But Dave's conversion was so genuine and his enthusiasm so real that it was impossible for me entirely to resist and beat back the impact of his testimony.