A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays

stood, to him, for all the manifestations of art; it was his only

bridge into the kingdom of the soul.

It was to Eric Hermannson that the evangelist directed his

impassioned pleading that night.

“Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? Is there a Saul here

to-night who has stopped his ears to that gentle pleading, who has

thrust a spear into that bleeding side? Think of it, my brother; you

are offered this wonderful love and you prefer the worm that dieth

not and the fire which will not be quenched. What right have you to

lose one of God’s precious souls? _Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou

me?_”

A great joy dawned in Asa Skinner’s pale face, for he saw that Eric

Hermannson was swaying to and fro in his seat. The minister fell

upon his knees and threw his long arms up over his head.

“O my brothers! I feel it coming, the blessing we have prayed for. I

tell you the Spirit is coming! Just a little more prayer, brothers,

a little more zeal, and he will be here. I can feel his cooling wing

upon my brow. Glory be to God forever and ever, amen!”

The whole congregation groaned under the pressure of this spiritual

panic. Shouts and hallelujahs went up from every lip. Another figure

fell prostrate upon the floor. From the mourners’ bench rose a chant

of terror and rapture:

“Eating honey and drinking wine,

Glory to the bleeding Lamb!

I am my Lord’s and he is mine,

Glory to the bleeding Lamb!

“

The hymn was sung in a dozen dialects and voiced all the vague

yearning of these hungry lives, of these people who had starved all

the passions so long, only to fall victims to the basest of them

all, fear.

A groan of ultimate anguish rose from Eric Hermannson’s bowed head,

and the sound was like the groan of a great tree when it falls in

the forest.

The minister rose suddenly to his feet and threw back his head,

crying in a loud voice:

“Lazarus, come forth! Eric Hermannson, you are lost, going down at

sea. In the name of God, and Jesus Christ his Son, I throw you the

life-line. Take hold! Almighty God, my soul for his!” The minister

threw his arms out and lifted his quivering face.

Eric Hermannson rose to his feet; his lips were set and the

lightning was in his eyes. He took his violin by the neck and

crushed it to splinters across his knee, and to Asa Skinner the

sound was like the shackles of sin broken audibly asunder.

II.

For more than two years Eric Hermannson kept the austere faith to

which he had sworn himself, kept it until a girl from the East came

to spend a week on the Nebraska Divide. She was a girl of other