a similar experience in this, that San Francisco gave them new revelations of human nature and of themselves.  Some went away crippled and scarred, some sad, some broken; but perhaps in the Great Day it may be found that for each and all there was a hidden blessing in the heart-throes of a service that seemed to demand that they should sow in bitter tears, and know no joyful reaping this side of the grave.  O my brothers, who have felt the fires of that furnace heated seven times hotter than usual, shall we not in the resting-place beyond the river realize that these fires burned out of us the dross that we did not know was in our souls?  The bird that comes out of the tempest with broken wing may henceforth take a lowlier flight, but will be safer because it ventures no more into the region of storms.

Fisher did not succeed in San Francisco, because he could not get a hearing.  A little handful would meet him on Sunday mornings in one of the upper-rooms of the old City Hall, and listen to sermons that sent them away in a religious glow, but he had no leverage for getting at the masses.  He was no adept in the methods by which the modern sensational preacher compels the attention of the novelty-loving crowds in our cities.  An evangelist in every fiber of his being, he chafed under the limitations of his charge in San Francisco, and from time to time he would make a dash into the country, where, at camp-meetings and on other special occasions, he preached the gospel with a power that broke many a sinner’s heart, and with a persuasiveness that brought many a wanderer back to the Good Shepherd’s fold.  His bodily energy, like his religious zeal, was unflagging.  It seemed little less than a miracle that he could, day after day, make such vast expenditure of nervous energy without exhaustion.  He put all his strength into every sermon and exhortation, whether addressed to admiring and weeping thousands at a great camp-meeting, or to a dozen or less “standbys” at the Saturday-morning service of a quarterly-meeting.

He had his trials and crosses.  Those who knew him intimately learned to expect his mightiest pulpit efforts when the shadow on his face and the unconscious sigh showed that he was passing through the waters and crying to God out of the depths.  In such experiences, the strong man is revealed and gathers new strength; the weak one goes under.  But his strength was more than mere natural force of will, it was the strength of a mighty faith in God—­that unseen force by which the saints work righteousness, subdue kingdoms, escape the violence of fire, and stop the mouths of lions.