“’I am a Californian, have practiced law for years in that State, and, at the time I allude to, was district judge.  I was holding court at [I cannot now recall the name of the town he mentioned], and on Saturday was told that a Methodist camp-meeting was being held a few miles from town.  I determined to visit it, and reached the place of meeting in good time to hear the great preacher of the occasion—­Father Fisher.  The meeting was held in a river canyon.  The rocks towered hundreds of feet on either side, rising over like an arch.  Through the ample space over which the rocks hung the river flowed, furnishing abundance of cool water, while a pleasant breeze fanned a shaded spot.  A great multitude had assembled—­hundreds of very hard cases, who had gathered there, like myself, for the mere novelty of the thing.  I am not a religious man —­never have been thrown under religious influences.  I respect religion, and respect its teachers, but have been very little in contact with religious things.  At the appointed time, the preacher rose.  He was small, with white hair combed back from his forehead, and he wore a venerable beard.  I do not know much about the Bible, and I cannot quote from his text, but he preached on the Judgment.  I tell you, sir, I have heard eloquence at the bar and on the hustings, but I never heard such eloquence as that old preacher gave us that day.  At the last, when he described the multitudes calling on the rocks and mountains to fall on them, I instinctively looked up to the arching rocks above me.  Will you believe it, sir?—­as I looked up, to my horror I saw the walls of the canyon swaying as if they were coming together!  Just then the preacher called on all that needed mercy to kneel down.  I recollect he said something like this:  “’Every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess;’ and you might as well do it now as then.”  The whole multitude fell on their knees—­every one of them.  Although I had never done so before, I confess to you, sir, I got down on my knees.  I did not want to be buried right then and there by those rocks that seemed to be swaying to destroy me.  The old man prayed for us; it was a wonderful prayer!  I want to see him once more; where will I be likely to find him?’

“When he had closed his narrative, I said to him:  ’Judge, I hope you have bowed frequently since that day.’  ‘Alas! no, sir,’ he replied; ’not much; but depend upon it, Father Fisher is a wonderful orator—­he made me think that day that the walls of the canyon were falling.’”

He went back to Texas, the scene of his early labors and triumphs, to die.  His evening sky was not cloudless—­he suffered much—­but his sunset was calm and bright; his waking in the Morning Land was glorious.  If it was at that short period of silence spoken of in the Apocalypse, we may be sure it was broken when Fisher went in.

Jack White.