It was the Corn Exchange at Cambridge, where the most famous of all American evangelists was holding one of a series of revivalist meetings.

The great bare hall was packed with youths, who came, some to scoff and others to pray.

The coarse-figured, bald-headed, brown-bearded man in black on the platform, with his homely phrase and (to polite undergraduate ears) terrible Yankee twang, was talking vehemently of the trivial instruments the Almighty used to effect His purposes.

Moses's rod, for instance.

"You can imagine Pharaoh," said he--and the echo of the great voice came to Septimus through the years--"you can imagine Pharaoh walking down the street one day and seeing Moses with a great big stick in his hand.