Branson spoke thus: "Friends and brothers: I stand before you a redeemed
man. I am washed and made white in the blood of Jesus. I am as a brand
snatched from the burning. I am now in my eighty-third year. You know
the manner of my life up until this meeting. I have had absolutely
nothing to do with religion. As you know I have lived a life of great
wickedness. I have been a drunkard, a gambler--a mighty sinner. For
fifty-three years I had not gone near a church service until this
meeting began. I have been thoroughly put out with the type of
Christianity exhibited in this community these past years. But when
through sheer curiosity I came into this arbor, I was made as conscious
of the presence of the Holy Ghost as if I could have seen him with my
natural eyes. There at that altar night before last I unburdened my
heart of the sins of nearly eighty years, and I stand tonight a witness
of the redeeming grace and love of Christ my Saviour. Oh, how can I
praise him enough? Here I stand right at the threshold of death with a
long and wasted life behind me and an eternity of bliss before me. What
but the mercy of an infinite God could bring about this wonderful
change?"

"Spooky" Crane said in his testimony that of all the churches he had
ever belonged to this one was the best. Aunt Sally Perkins shouted.

Evangelist Blank was just ready to close the meeting when he was
interrupted by Preacher Bonds. Bonds' face was red with rage and his
eyes gleaming with anger when he burst forth in this unceremonious
manner; "I thank God for a sensible and reasonable religion. I have been
a Christian for thirty years and a minister for twenty years and I have
never experienced any of this wonderful joy that these people speak of.
This sanctified holiness doctrine is the most damnable doctrine that
ever struck this country, or any other country. I knew a group of these