Presently, hymn-book or Testament in hand, he is sitting on the pulpit.
"Not much light here," says he, "so I won't read to-night; but I'll _say_ the First Psalm. Are you all ready?"
"All right. '_Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,_' boys, '_nor standeth in the way of sinners._'"
The door opens and a man awkwardly enters.
"Got any room back there for Bill, boys?" the preacher calls.
"I want to see you after service, Bill. You'll find a seat back there with the boys. '_For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous; but the way of the ungodly,_' gentlemen, '_shall perish._'"
There is a prayer, restrained, in the way of the preacher's church--a petition terrible with earnestness. One wonders how a feeling God could turn a deaf ear to the beseeching eloquence of it! And the boys sing--lustily, too--led by the stentorian preacher. An amazing incongruity: these seared, blasphemous barbarians bawling, _What a Friend I Have in Jesus!_
"Pilot," said one of them, in open meeting, once, with no irreverence whatsoever, "that's a damned fine toon! Why the hell don't they have toons like that in the shows? Let's sing her again!"
"Sure!" said the preacher, not at all shocked; "let's sing her again!"
There is a sermon--composed on the forest roads from camp to camp: for on those long, white, cold, blustering roads Higgins either whistles his blithe way (like a boy) or fashions his preaching. It is a searching, eloquent sermon: none other so exactly suited to environment and congregation--none other so simple and appealing and comprehensible. There isn't a word of cant in it; there isn't a suggestion of the familiar evangelistic rant. Higgins has no time for cant (he says)--nor any faith in ranting. The sermon is all orthodox and significant and reasonable; it has tender wisdom, and it is sometimes terrible with naked truth. The phrasing? It is as homely and brutal as the language of the woods. It has no affectation of slang. The preacher's message is addressed with wondrous cunning to men in their own tongue: wherefore it could not be repeated before a polite congregation. Were the preacher to ejaculate an oath (which he never would do)--were he to exclaim, "By God! boys, this is the only way of salvation!"--the solemnity of the occasion would not be disturbed by a single ripple.
