gets up, and say 'Now, Brother, won't you come down front and shake hands with Sister Falconer and make your stand for Jesus?'"
"No," said Dr. Binch, "my experience is that there are many timid people who have to be led gradually. To ask them to stand up is too big a step. But actually, we're probably both right. My motto as a soul-saver, if I may venture to apply such a lofty title to myself, is that one should use every method that, in the vernacular, will sell the goods."
"I guess that's right," said Elmer. "Say, tell me, Dr. Binch, what do you do with converts after they come to the altar?"
"I always try to have a separate room for 'em. That gives you a real chance to deepen and richen their new experience. They can't escape, if you close the door. And there's no crowd to stare and embarrass them."
"I can't see that," said Sharon. "I believe that if the people who come forward are making a stand for Christ, they ought to be willing to face the crowd. And it makes such an impression on the whole bunch of the unsaved to see a lot of seekers at the mourners' bench. You must admit, Brother Binch—Dr. Binch, I should say—that lots of people who just come to a revival for a good time are moved to conviction epidemically, by seeing others shaken."
"No, I can't agree that that's so important as making a deeper impression on each convert, so that each goes out as an agent for you, as it were. But every one to his own methods. I mean so long as the Lord is with us and behind us."
"Say, Dr. Binch," said Elmer, "how do you count your converts? Some of the preachers in this last town accused us of lying about the number. On what basis do you count them?"
"Why, I count every one (and we use a recording machine) that comes down to the front and shakes hands with me. What if some of them are merely old church-members warmed over? Isn't it worth just as much to give new spiritual life to those who've had it and lost it?"
"Of course it is. That's what we think. And then we got criticized there in that fool town! We tried—that is, Sister Falconer here tried—a stunt that was new for us. We opened up on some of the worst dives and blind tigers by name. We
