The Rev. “Billy” Williams at that particular moment occupied the center of the stage in Boston, and there was no immediate prospect of anyone else usurping that place inasmuch as his local engagement had six weeks more to run. He was a sensational evangelist whose campaigns on behalf of old-fashioned religion and of old-fashioned morals had stirred up the profoundest depths of human feeling in dozens of communities in all parts of the country and had brought tens of thousands of men and women in all stations of life to an emotional crisis in which they pledged themselves anew or for the first time to a faithful adherence to the fundamental tenets of Christianity.

His methods were so bizarre and so baroque and he was such a past-master of the art of publicity that he always afforded first-page “copy” whenever he arrived in a city. His meetings were held in great specially constructed tabernacles seating ten thousand or more persons and were conducted with a splendid sense of dramatic values for he was a keen psychologist and he knew the things best calculated to move and sway great groups of people. The judicious and the ultra-dignified who came to grieve or to sneer were usually carried away in a tumult of emotional excitement and were literally swept off their feet by the cumulative appeal of all his cunningly devised plans to “get to their innards,” as “Billy” himself was wont to phrase it in his own inelegant, but singularly effective style.

Not even Jimmy Martin himself had such a vocabulary of arresting and original slang as “Billy” Williams. His sermons reeked with it when he felt that the occasion warranted its use and even the most conservative of clergymen who at first frowned at such language in the pulpit were eventually obliged to admit that it had its place in a white-hot appeal made to a vast miscellaneous audience seated in an auditorium as long as a city block, an audience which would unquestionably remain unmoved if preached to in the chaste and austere phrases of the conventional pulpit orator. The downright sincerity of the man and the compelling force of his powerful personality turned scoffers into ardent followers and made him indeed a mighty power in any city which he honored with a visit.

Early on the Sunday evening following the events hitherto chronicled a great crowd surged about the entrances to the huge wooden auditorium which sprawled over a lot in the environs of the city. It was a heterogeneous crowd not dissimilar in its composition to the other crowds which flocked in the summer to the great white tents which the circus pitched on this very spot. Most of those comprising it were quiet and orderly—apparently a little self-conscious of the necessity for decorum—but there were, here and there, a group of noisy and irrepressible Spirits, all of them young, who seemed to regard the occasion as one affording unequalled opportunities for a lark. The doors had not yet been opened for the evening service and the throng grew to enormous proportions with each passing minute.

An acute observer in an aeroplane circling over the particular group which awaited entrance on the north side of the tabernacle would have noticed a little cluster of femininity in the front ranks which stood out vividly from the rather dull and neutral tone of the rest of the crowd like some brilliant pattern woven into a field of grayish tinge.

There were rich purples, bright reds and gay greens in this little oasis of color and from it there arose light laughter and frivolous chatter, the echoes of which carried to the shocked ears of those more serious minded persons who patiently waited on its edges for the onrush which always followed the opening of the doors. Jimmy Martin stood in the direct center of the oasis in his capacity as Personal Custodian of the Big Idea and tried to soothe those turbulent spirits among the members of the chorus of the “Keep Moving” company who were beginning to chafe at the delay.

“Say, young fellow,” drawled a svelte creature whose tawny hair glowed like an aureole as the last rays from the setting sun caught and kindled it, “I haven’t stood as long as this since I quit cloak and suit modeling to decorate the drama. Where do you get this stuff anyway? What do you think we are—a troupe of trained seals?”

“That’s what I say,” broke in a young person with the soft eyes of a Rubens’ seraph. “I called off a perfectly good dinner date with a dandy little Harvard rah-rah just because Bartlett made a personal matter out of this thing and here we are standing around with the other hicks waiting for the side-show to begin and wasting perfectly good and valuable time. Press agents always did get my goat.”

“Mine, too,” remarked a languid houri whose pallid face was set off by a pair of enormous green earrings. “In New York I wouldn’t think of standing in line for a chance to see the signing of the Declaration of Independence with the original cast, and here I am getting corns on my tootsies waiting to listen to a fellow that anyone can hear any time for nothing at all. Really, girls, I don’t think any of us are in our right minds.”

“I know it’s a nuisance, ladies,” said Jimmy urbanely, “but when you see the smear that I think we’re goin’ to land in tomorrow’s papers you’ll be thankful that you stuck along. I want you all to sit in a group by yourselves and don’t any of you try to be too shrinking. I want the newspaper bunch to find you’re there without my tellin’ ’em. Then it’ll look as if your bein’ there is more on the level than otherwise. When it comes to the singin’ I want all of you, please, to cut in for all it’s worth just as if Bartlett was sittin’ down in front at a dress rehearsal.”

“When the trail hittin’ begins just sit tight and register intense interest in the proceedings. If any of you laugh it’ll spoil the whole arrangement. I was at one of these meetin’s out in Denver a couple of years ago and when those folks start comin’ down the aisles believe me it ain’t anything to get funny about. If any of the newspaper crowd get to you when it’s all over I want whoever does any talkin’ to say that you’re all profoundly impressed with everything and all that, and that you’re all comin’ again tomorrow afternoon and whenever else you get a chance.”

Jimmy didn’t heed the sarcastic reception with which his final words of instruction were greeted. His eyes were fixed admiringly for the moment on Lolita Murphy who stood near him talking earnestly to one of the “ponies.” To him she never looked prettier than she did in the simple little tailor-made suit and the trim black velvet toque which she had worn on the automobile ride they had taken together that afternoon, an excursion which seemed to have wiped out all traces of the “Cedar Rapids blues,” and which had left her smiling and happy again. She had protested a little against participating in the staging of Jimmy’s Big Idea, but had finally yielded to his persuasive arguments and here she was now, shining and radiant in contrast with her more elaborately attired and highly artificial sisters.

Just then a murmur swept through the crowd; attendants at the entrance shouted “easy, please, everyone,” and Jimmy and his group of more or less merry chorus maidens were caught in a whirling current of humanity which shot them through the door, rumpled and almost panic-stricken, and landed them at the head of a long aisle bisecting the huge empty auditorium which yawned before them, ablaze with lights and festooned with flags. The press agent was the first to collect his thoughts.

“Everybody make a dive for the front seats,” he shouted. “Follow me.”

The “Keep Moving” girls couldn’t do anything else. The surging crowd pressed them forward and they took the aisle on the run to avoid being knocked down. They all managed to get seats in the front rows where hand-mirrors, powder puffs and lip sticks soon came into play to the horror and stupefaction of many in the great choir of a thousand which occupied places on the platform directly in front of them.

Jimmy, having successfully performed his function as counselor and cicerone, was careful to seat himself a considerable distance away on the other side of the aisle where he effaced himself as much as possible by betraying an intense interest in a hymn book which was proffered him by an usher. He knew that it wouldn’t do for him to be seen in close proximity to his charges by any of the keen-eyed reporters who were even now gathering at the press table underneath the reading desk in the center of the platform.

One of these reporters, a curly-headed youngster with laughing eyes, turned his chair around to get a comprehensive view of the thousands of persons who were jostling each other in the center and side aisles as the vast building rapidly filled up. He caught a glimpse of the numerous facial toilettes in progress in the front rows, ran an appraising eye over the entire group; smothered an unchurchly chuckle and nudged his nearest companion. Presently the entire press table was abuzz with whispered comment as the identity of the visitors was established.

While the crowd was still noisily filing into the rear rows “Billy” Williams’ principal assistant put in an appearance on the platform and was loudly applauded by scattered groups who were promptly quieted by the ushers who moved quickly up and down the aisles, ready at a moment’s notice, to insist upon the preservation of the dignities. The assistant was a jovial looking man with an infectious smile. He held a cornet in one hand and he raised the other to command the attention of the great throng. A hush fell over the assemblage and presently the strains of “Onward, Christian Soldiers” cut through the silence with penetrating incisiveness. The effect was electric. When the cornetist had finished he turned swiftly and at precisely the same instant the thousand singers on the platform rose to their feet and burst into song. Another signal and the audience stood up. In response to a pleading gesture from the man with the smile a voice was raised here and there in unison with the chorus. He pleaded pantomimically once more and, as if by the exercise of sheer hypnotic control, he presently cajoled the great crowd into singing.

From that moment he held the audience in the hollow of his hand and played with it. Now he would have everyone on one side of the auditorium singing. Then he would be challenging those on the other side to outdo their competitors. Now it was the women who would be asked to sing alone. Next it would be the men. The choir would be asked to sing a verse. Then the entire audience would be called upon to follow them. By the time he had finished with those preliminaries he had the throats of everyone present in such thorough working order and the feeling of self-consciousness had been so dissipated that when he eventually demanded “a combined effort that will shake the gates of glory” the result was inspiring to the last degree.

As the final words of the final chorus were shaken out by ten thousand throats in one last concentrated burst of glad song the Rev. “Billy” Williams stepped through a door on the side of the platform and quickly crossed to the reading desk. No playwright, craftily scheming for a “good entrance” for a stage star, could ever have contrived a situation or a moment more pregnant with dramatic effectiveness or more tense with emotion. The last word of the hymn had died down and the air seemed to still throb with the dying echoes as the evangelist reached to the center of the platform and held up his hand in a gesture which was an invitation to prayer. Ten thousand heads were bowed in humble submission to his implied command, and in a voice which breathed sincerity and fine feeling he offered up a simple supplication beseeching the blessing of Divine Providence upon all assembled and upon himself, an unworthy instrument of a higher Power.

He was a stockily built man with a rugged and rather rough-hewn face. Blue eyes were set in it below bushy brows that gave him, in moods of intense earnestness, a somewhat ferocious aspect. They were eyes that now glowed with tender warmth, that grew hard or relentlessly cold next moment or that would ever and anon gleam and glint with merriment. They were the most expressive of his features. They mirrored his moods with uncanny accuracy. The movements of his squat and chunky frame were quick and darting when he was in action and even when he was in repose—which was seldom—he seemed to be literally seething with energy beneath the surface. When he permitted himself the luxury of letting down the inhibitive barriers which ordinarily held this energy in check he became a dynamic force that was almost irresistible in its onslaught on the emotions.

The prayer over, another hymn was sung under the magnetic leadership of the assistant, while “Billy” Williams pulled his chair over the edge of the platform and fraternized with the reporters as was his custom. Jimmy Martin, who was watching the proceedings circumspectly over the shoulder of a prim looking maiden lady who stood next him and whose hymn book he was sharing in a pretense of devotional interest, noticed that the curly headed newsgatherer was whispering to the evangelist and directing the latter’s attention to his charges in the front rows.

He saw “Billy” Williams look interestedly at the young women and then smile. It was such a healthy, wholesome, frank smile that it was instantly returned by the “Keep Moving” girls and Jimmy found himself taking note of the fact that even the most utterly blase members of the group seemed to drop their affected air of supreme world-weariness for a moment and become human once more. He noticed the evangelist turn away from the press table as the final chorus of the hymn was sung by everyone in the auditorium and look up towards the flag-bedecked rafters for a half minute or so as if pondering on an idea that had occurred to him. As the great audience seated itself he sprang to his feet with an air of decision.

“My friends,” he announced in a voice which swept to the farthest corners of the vast building, “I have an announcement to make that may disappoint some of you. I regret this but my duty is as clear to me as the unclouded noon-day sky. A Divine opportunity for service presents itself to me tonight and I would be recreant to my ideals if I did not embrace it. I had intended to preach to you on some of the lessons which I draw from the disgusting exhibition of prize-fighting which was tolerated in this city during the past week and I had announced that I would tan the hides of some of the city officials responsible for its sanction, and that I would nail those hides on the door of the house wherein abideth decency and honor.

“I have changed my plan, my friends, not because of any fear of the skulking swine whom I had intended to attack. Their turn on the griddle will come tomorrow night. Instead of preaching on that theme I have decided to devote this evening’s discourse to an attack upon the pernicious evils of the modern theatre,—that hell-hole, that cesspool, that slimy sink of iniquity and despair. Bear with me, my friends, for tonight I may be the humble medium by means of which the truth may be brought not only into your own lives, but into the lives and into the hearts of those more directly connected with this unholy institution for the degradation of mankind.”

He paused for a moment while a whispered buzz of comment spread through the auditorium. Jimmy Martin, who had sat fascinated throughout these introductory remarks and who could hardly credit the validity of his own auditory sensations, darted an apprehensive glance at the chorus girls. A few were registering haughty and contemptuous disdain and were sniffing the circumambient air. The majority, however, seemed gifted with a saving sense of humor and were smiling good-naturedly. Jimmy sighed with relief. It was pleasant to think that the Rev. “Billy” Williams was unconsciously playing into his hand so successfully that the story which was now certain to develop would take on an added value and would unquestionably be featured in the headlines.

There was another hymn and then the evangelist plunged into the body of his discourse. It was a sermon that he had already delivered with sensational success in no less than twenty-three states. It was a fine example of unrestrained denunciatory oratory and it ranked with his other internationally famous sermons such as “Dancing—the Devil’s Device for Drugging Decency”; or, “Modern Women’s Attire—Satan’s Trap for the Unwary Male.” He traced the history of the drama from the flourishing days of its great popularity in ancient Greece down through twenty-five centuries to the present day and on the way he stopped to excoriate a long line of playwrights from Aristophanes to the writer of a salacious bed-room farce then current in Boston. He denounced the comedies of Terence at which ancient Rome laughed; the immoral plays which had their day during the Restoration in England and the modern American musical comedy with equal vehemence and with that complete absence of a sense of proportion which always characterizes the propagandist and the special pleader.

He admitted, and rather gloried in the admission, that he had not been in a theatre in twenty-five years and declared that he would sooner be struck dead than ever cross the threshold of one again. On top of this assertion he declared with convincing sincerity, that “I know whereof I speak when I say to you that never before in the history of the civilized world has the theatre quite so flagrantly flaunted its indecencies in the face of an outraged public as at the present time.” He attacked the defenseless moving picture and consigned it and its progenitors and abettors to the exterior darkness.

Then he grew sentimental and his voice, which had been pitched in a high key, became touched with something soft and tender. He gave his idea of what he felt to be the blasting and devastating effect of the world of the theatre upon a girl who might had known the restraining influences of a simple home in her childhood and he presented a picture of the sordid contacts she would be forced to make in seeking a career upon the stage. Jimmy winced at the unreality of this picture; its unfairness and its gross exaggeration, but there was no doubting that the speaker himself believed it to be gospel truth and that he presented it with such convincing sincerity that the vast majority of those present were all aquiver with moral indignation at the charges he made. He let his voice drop to a lower tone, and there was the vibrant tremor of a deeply-felt emotion in it as he spoke, crouching over the reading desk and bending his head forward in an attitude of eager expectancy.

“Mayhap there is such a girl here tonight, drawn hither by the elusive whisperings of a conscience which was developed at the knee of a saintly mother and under the fond paternal care of a loving father. Perchance she comes, like so many of these poor butterflies of the stage, from a home in a small town untouched by the tinsel glitter and the tawdry allurements of the pleasure-ridden metropolis. Perhaps she was caught defenseless in a moment of passionate revolt against what she, poor foolish thing, felt to be the cramping restrictions of her environment, and perhaps she was swept off her feet into the current that leads swift and ever swifter to destruction.

“Perhaps she said good-bye to the peaceful little town, to the heart-broken mother and to the tender, patient father who was trying so hard to stay the flood of tears surging in his kindly eyes; perhaps she went to the big city and courted the muse of tragedy or of comedy and found, for a time, a specious joy in the glare and brilliance of the footlights. Perhaps there came to her a measure of success in the new realm of pleasure and mayhap she was carried out of herself, out of her real self, into a lotus land of dazzling splendor.”

His voice grew more tremulous now. He leaned forward and seemed to be speaking directly to the little group of girls in the front rows. Jimmy noticed that they were the focus point of observation on the part of the reporters.

“If there are any such girls here tonight,” pleaded the evangelist, “let me hold out to them the helping hand of service. Let me beg them, with all the sincerity of my nature, to give heed to the warning I have sounded. Let me ask them to picture the little home back yonder with the empty chair that’s always waiting for the daughter who has gone out to beat her fragile wings against the candle’s flame. Let them picture again the little mother with the soft, grey eyes. They were so bright and lively once, but now there is an anxious look in them. There is sadness in her heart, too, a heavy sadness, but she tries to be brave for the sake of him who sits so gloomily by the fire-place and aches for the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is gone.

“Let me entreat you to bring the roses back to mother’s pale cheeks again if there are any of you here. Let me plead with you, out of a full heart, to bring the laughter back to father’s lips and the smile back to his care-worn face. Let me urge you to fly from the stifling air of the playhouse back to the clean, open spaces where the fair winds blow, where love and tender solicitude await you and where life is real and earnest and not an empty, foolish dream. We will pray for guidance and when we have finished I will ask all those who wish to be consecrated anew to come down the aisles and clasp my hand in a pledge of fealty to the service of Him whom they have forgotten for a while in the fretful rush of selfish living. Let us pray.”

Down on his knees went the Rev. “Billy” Williams and as thousands in the great audience bowed their heads once more he prayed fervently that everyone present who was unworthy at heart might see the light and embrace again with the simple faith of childhood the eternal truths of religion. The “Keep Moving” girls bowed their heads with the others, and if Jimmy had been a little closer he might have noticed that here and there a rouged face was stained with tears and that hard lines around the mouths of one or two of the bolder spirits had been softened as if by some subtle alchemy beyond the ken of mortal mind.

The prayer over, the evangelist sprang to his feet and raised his hand. The great choir, in instant response to his signal, began to softly sing, “Lead, Kindly Light.” At a perfectly timed moment toward the end of this most exquisite of hymns his voice sounded above the pianissimo phrasing of the massed singers and carried, with penetrating clarity, to the far end of the hushed auditorium.

“Won’t someone make the break with the past,” he exhorted. “Won’t someone be the first to lead the strayed sheep into the vineyard of the Lord?”

A tall, thin man with scraggly white hair and a pale ascetic face stood up about fifteen rows back from the platform and slid out into the nearest aisle. He bent his head as if breasting a heavy wind and his cheeks suddenly flamed at the consciousness of the thousands of eyes which were turned on him as he slouched awkwardly down toward “Billy” Williams, who had stepped from the platform and who was now standing at the end of the aisle. The evangelist reached out his hand and the tall man grasped it as he made a quick dive for a handkerchief and dabbed at his face. He mumbled something under his breath.

“Don’t be ashamed to cry, brother,” said the evangelist, putting his arm affectionately around the other’s shoulder. “Tears at a time like this are drops of God’s dew that will wash your soul as clean as morning roses.” And then he addressed the audience as the last notes of the hymn were sung by the choir. “Who’ll join our brother at the mercy seat,” he shouted. “Who’ll be the next to heed the glad tidings?”

There was a movement and a scraping of feet in every section of the building and presently men and women of all ages and all conditions began coming down the aisle to be greeted by “Billy” Williams and shunted aside into the open space designed for the reception of converts. There they stood, most of them with drooped heads and many of them crying. There were a few who held their heads up and their shoulders back and who stood four-square to all the curious glances directed toward them. On their faces were brave smiles and there was about them the air of spiritual elation that was inspiring to those who noted it.

Jimmy Martin’s emotions had been subjected to a severe grilling during the concluding portion of the preacher’s sentimental appeal and he had lost a little of his self-reserve and customary complacency during the prayer. When the first of the converts came struggling down the aisle and had begun to weep a little, the press agent found himself, for the first time in many years, struggling to hold back the tears that came unbidden into his own eyes. When the others had followed the spell was broken and he looked furtively about to see if anyone had noticed that he had been trembling on the verge of weakness. He thought once more of the mission which had brought him into this alien atmosphere and he directed his attention to the benches occupied by the young women for whom he was acting as a somewhat remote escort.

The converts were coming down the aisles now in little groups of three and four and the evangelist was keeping things at fever heat with loudly voiced exhortations. He leaned toward the “Keep Moving” girls and made a personal plea to them.

“Isn’t there someone here in this group of girls who has seen the light tonight,” he inquired. “Won’t someone among you step out here and take my hand and get right with her soul again?”

“I’ll say I will,” Jimmy heard Natalie Nugent, the girl with the pallor and the green earrings, say as she stood up and walked toward “Billy” Williams who gripped her outstretched hand and directed her to a position alongside him. The press agent looked at the other girls and noticed that they were watching her with fascinated interest. Somehow he couldn’t quite grasp what it all meant.

“God bless you, sister,” the evangelist shouted. “Won’t some of your friends join you?” He plunged again into the vernacular, choosing, as always, the effective moment. “It’s your cue, girls,” he pleaded. “The curtain’s up and the call boy is knocking at the door of your hearts. Don’t delay. You can’t tell what moment the Great Stage Manager will ring down for the last time. It may be tonight. It may be tomorrow. Don’t be caught unprepared. It’s a blessed opportunity, girls. Don’t pass it up. For mother’s sake, girls, for mother’s sake.”

Three other girls got up now and came forward. Jimmy gave an audible gasp of amazement. A fifth and a sixth moved into place beside the others and then Lolita Murphy stood up, hesitated for just a moment, caught “Billy” Williams’ warm human smile and stepped briskly forward. A half dozen others followed. The remainder sat with bowed heads. Those who had left their places stood in a little circle by themselves, clustered directly about the beaming evangelist. He made a last plea for converts to the vast audience and a stray dozen or more men and women, whose moral courage had not been quite strong enough to force a decision at the beginning, bobbed up here and there and moved toward the platform. There was a momentary pause and then the preacher spoke again.

“My friends,” he said, “a most remarkable event has occurred here tonight. Perhaps some of you here near the front have surmised what it is, but I am sure that the great majority of you have not grasped its significance. My efforts tonight have been blessed by an achievement of which I am extremely proud. Thirteen members of a theatrical company now appearing in this city—a company presenting a conglomeration bearing the idiotic title of ‘Keep Moving’—thirteen lovely young women have been rescued from the insidious temptations that lurk behind the blinding glare of the footlights and have come out here in the open and made a pledge to get back into the old, simple ways of living. It’s the most wonderful thing that has happened since I began my campaign, and while these brave and earnest souls are here with us let us all join in a prayer that they may be steadfast in their new aim and that their example may be a shining one to thousands of others in this great city. Let us pray.”

When the great throng arose after the prayer to sing the final hymn Jimmy Martin edged out of his seat and slipped unobtrusively up one of the aisles and out into the chill evening air. He was dazed and bewildered, but he had presence of mind enough to hail a taxicab and direct the chauffeur to drive him to his hotel. He had an idea that pictures of the fair converts would be in demand and he wanted to be on hand when the bright young gentlemen of the press put in an appearance.