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.”