Campaign in Cleveland, but, in spite of this, to me he seemed at his best.  He spent no time in angling to get into sympathetic touch with them, but with the precision of a bullet he made direct for the conscience of every man and woman there.  Talk about ‘naked truth,’ ‘judgment,’ ‘daylight,’ ‘straight preaching.’  We had it that night, as I never heard it before.  There was no escape.  Every honest person there had to pass judgment on himself.

“It was difficult to close that Meeting.  The truth was setting men free.  Many wept and prayed and submitted to God, and some fairly howled at the revelation God gave them of their character and conduct.  It has been my privilege to hear such preachers as Beecher, Matthew, Simpson, and Phillips Brooks, and such orators as Wendell Phillips and Gough; but The General is the greatest master of assemblies I ever met.  He played on those vast audiences of judges, lawyers, ministers, business and working men as Ole Bull played on the violin.  They laughed, they wept, they hung their heads with conviction, their bosoms heaved with emotions, they were convinced, convicted, and a multitude were converted.  I think at one time there could not have been less than 3,000 eyes brimming with tears.  He uncovered sin and made it appear as it is, utterly without excuse, and utterly loathsome; and then he revealed the love and sympathy and helpfulness of Christ, till many could not resist, but had to yield.

“A lawyer said to me the next day that the sermons and lecture were the most wonderful he had ever heard.  Another lawyer who had been to each Meeting stayed in his place till the very close on Sunday night, saying that he could not tear himself away.

“The common people heard him gladly, and the uncommon people were overwhelmed with admiration, and conviction.  A young lady, belonging to one of the best families in the city, just home from Paris, where she had been studying art, heard him and could not refrain from leaving the box in which she sat and going to the Penitent-Form.  She went home truly converted.

     “The wave of power and conviction did not cease when The General
     left; and during the next four days we saw fifty-eight persons at
     the Penitent-Form.”

The special value of all these American testimonies to the effect of The General’s brief visits, lies in the fact that they show the triumph of the War plan of God, just in the circumstances where weaklings are tempted to yield to public opinion, substitute orations for real righting for souls, and to press nobody to an immediate decision, or change of heart and life.

There can be no doubt that The Army’s invariable fight against the drink has helped to make its General so highly honoured amongst American statesmen.  But in that, as in everything else, the important fact to note is that it was by establishing an absolute authority that he secured the faithful carrying on of the campaign against drink and every other evil at every spot where our Flag flies.