Many were convicted. God knows how many carried the good seed away in their hearts, that will grow into eternal life.
“It was now the first of June, and we were ready to put up our large tent, which we brought from California. The only place we could get room enough was “Kerry Patch,” a place noted for the hoodlum element, where they gathered from all parts of the city. People have been shot down, or robbed, or stoned here, any hour of the day. There were two large Catholic churches, one on each side of the tent. One was about a block away, the other about two blocks. We lived in our small tents without a shade tree, for five months.
The Christians tried to persuade us not to pitch our tents in “Kerry Patch,” and after we had them up they tried to have us move away from that wicked and rough element, but we felt God had led us there. We rented the ground for three months, paid seventy-five dollars for it. The Christians said there had been several show tents put up where ours stood, and the rough element cut the ropes and tore their tents down. They said if they would cut the ropes of a show tent, surely a gospel tent would have no chance at all: We said God has placed us here and by his grace we will stay. Many of our best friends were afraid to let their wives and daughters come, and felt they were running a great risk in coming themselves, as the congregation was stoned coming and going. Sometimes the stones went flying through the tent. They did not know what a camp-meeting was, but thought it was some kind of a show. Most of these people had never been to a church. The first night the tent was crowded. Men stood on the seats with hats on, cigars and pipes in their mouths, coats off and sleeves rolled up. Women with old dirty aprons and dresses on, bare-headed and bare-armed. They would shoot off fire-crackers, and when we sang they sang the louder; when we prayed, they clapped their hands and cheered us: They had pistols and clubs, and were ready to kill us, and tear down the tent. It looked like we would all be killed. Several ministers tried to talk, but were stoned down, or their voice drowned out. It looked like surrender or death.
It was an awful sight to see a little band of Christians, sitting nearly frozen to their seats with fear, surrounded by a mob of wild fierce men and women, many of them half drunk, their eyes and faces red and inflamed. Every effort failed and we could do
