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People surged to ward the Sydney Town Ha l l . The A m e r i c a ns were here again! When God Saved the Brewer's Boy By LOUIS T. TALBOT as told to MILDRED M. COOK Chapter IY. C HE STEAM-DRIVEN streetcar puffed along. It was late on a Saturday afternoon, and I was- on* my way to a theater. A ll at once,
While my informant was still talk ing, I left the car to investigate for myself. Had I given him time, he might have told me that Charles M. Alexander and Robert Harkness — those gifted musicians who had been with R. A. Torrey on a similar mis sion in Sydney’s Town Hall several years earlier, were back again—of fering the same glorious gospel and being greeted with similar city-wide enthusiasm. Thousands had b e e n saved under/Torrey’s mighty preach ing. The evangelist this time was J. Wilbur Chapman/ In the providence of God, both these great preachers touched my life. Impressed by Success But I was not interested in per sonalities as such. I was swept along by my appreciation of the success of these men, which was apparent in the immense crowd of 'interested fol lowers. I reasoned: Any man .who can draw and hold people like ’ that has something—but what is it? I found that every entrance to the auditorium was closed, with police men standing guard and explaining —not too patiently—that the house was filled, though I t seated some 4,000 ‘ persons. Not even standing room was available inside. Snatches of conversation of the by standers fascinated me. I h e a r d \Continued Page 132]
my attention was p r i c k e d wide awake. The car barely crept, and I saw, on either side, people surging in one direction. Out of my seat in an instant, I approached the conduc tor. “What’s the matter? What’s going on here?” I flung the questions at him. Mild-mannered and deliberate, he looked a bit shocked at my igno rance. I was eighteen, and no tourist as he could see. Waving an arm in the direction of the Town Hall, “Don’t you know where you are?" he que ried. “ Yes. Of course.” I was impatient and excited. “But-r-these crowds?” Fully three thousand people were massed about the building, unable to gain admittance. I remembered, fleetingly, that it is proverbial with Australians tt> show their interest in wholehearted fashion: as many as twenty-five thousand of them as sembling at a football game between local teams; that number and more at a game of cricket; still more at a bicycle championship. “ It’s the evangelists from America here again,” the conductor was tell ing hie. “Seems they like Sydney”—* this with a show of pride. *
Copi/right 19H, Mildred. M. Cook
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