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seemed bleak and empty. The people hurried along in silence;
old snow lay frozen hard in the dark dirty corners; and the dust
was thick. Over the roofs the sky seemed particularly black,
foggy, and cold.
It was night.
No sound except those of the vehicles flying over the rough
pavement, the pounding tramcars that passed, and the shoes of
the hurrying people. . . . but at last, at intervals above
the other sounds there came what seemed to be a voice raised
in shouting or speaking; and on coming to a place where two
mean dark side streets met I found on the pavement a short
plump gentle but very earnest Negro of forty who was urging
upon passers the principles of Jesus’ teaching. He used the
inflection and diction of Negroes in this part of the world, but
he was neatly dressed and wore a greatcoat; his head was bare,
for he had placed his round black hat against an iron hydrant
for the reception of coins. Four or five men who had turned
aside from the main street were listening to him; more, how
ever, were going into the half-screened drinking places all about.
Besides, the farther side of the street in which he stood contained
a row of little dark wooden buildings that held Negro brothels.
It was a dusty winter night.
“You men, naow:” the Negro was crying in a ringing, pleas
ing voice, “you got to be good! You got to do as God says! It
ain’t gwine do you no good to pray to God if you don’t do as He
says! Don’t you go to fightin and killin and gamblin and then
pray to God. It ain’t gwine do you no good! First you got to
quit yo fightin, quit yo killin, quit yo drinkin, quit yo gamblin,
quit yo swarin, quit yo whore-mongerin: God does not wish you
to do these things! Then you go to Him and pray! And He’s
gwine hear what you say!”
The utterance of these words with singular force in that
stirring melodious voice, and the face and form of the little man
made lovely by joy, faith and good will, shone in that bleak cold
street, it seemed to me, like glittering gold shining from the
gutter dust.
I drew nearer and listened to him say that he had come here
because he had been bidden by God to go among men and
preach the Word, not as preached in worldly churches but as the