Christians," but still no one responded. I was becoming interested and
was almost disappointed when no one answered to this second invitation.
Then he put up the proposition to those "who _have no objections_
to becoming Christians." "He will get a lot of them on this call," I
said to myself, but to my surprise, no one stirred. "Well," I thought,
"this is too bad, but why couldn't I help him out? I have no objections
to becoming a Christian," and I stood up. I slipped out of the meeting
ahead of the crowd, but in my room that night before I went to bed, I
found myself on my knees, trying to pray. I did not succeed very well.
"Oh, what's the use?" I said, "there's nothing in it." But I lay awake
far into the night, thinking, feeling the beating of my heart, wondering
what kept it going and "what if it should stop suddenly?"

But in less than a day these impressions had passed. I laughed them off
and kept on in my own way. For six weeks I steered clear of Dave, but I
did not want to lose his friendship, and then, too, I was rather curious
to find out what, if anything, he had really discovered. So, one Sunday
morning in early April, I drifted down to his home, as I had done so
many times before. I stopped at my father's house on the way, and after
a short visit, went on to Dave's. It was a pleasant morning, and I left
my overcoat at home, as I had but a short distance to go.

Dave lived in a beautiful old farmhouse near the shore, overlooking the
harbor, and our Sunday program had been walking along the beach, or
sitting around the house smoking, eating apples, drinking cider and
killing time in the most unconventional way possible. "It's too bad," I
thought, "that Dave has got religion, it spoils all our good times"; but
I was hoping to find him less strenuous on the subject than when I had
heard him in the chapel six weeks before. But Dave's conversion was so
genuine and his enthusiasm so real that it was impossible for me