II + 

Though Cleo took him for a drive through the country, most of the time before Sunday he dedicated to refurbishing a sermon which he had often and successfully used with Sharon. The text was from Romans 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.” + 

When he came up to the church on Sunday morning, tall and ample, grave and magnificent, his face fixed in a smile of friendliness, his morning coat bright in the sun, a Bible under his arm, Elmer was exhilarated by the crowd filtering into the church. The street was filled with country buggies and a Ford or two. As he went round to the back of the church, passing a knot at the door, they shouted cordially, “Good morning, Brother!” and “Fine day, Reverend!” + 

Cleo was waiting for him with the choir⁠—Miss Kloof, the schoolteacher, Mrs. Diebel, wife of the implement dealer, Ed Perkins, deliveryman for Mr. Benham, and Ray Faucett, butter-maker at the creamery. + 

Cleo held his hand and rejoiced, “What a wonderful crowd there is this morning! I’m so glad!” + 

Together they peeped through the parlor door into the auditorium, and he almost put his arm about her firm waist.⁠ ⁠… It would have seemed natural, very pleasant and right and sweet. + 

When he marched out to the chancel, the church was full, a dozen standing. They all breathed with admiration. (He learned later that the last pastor had had trouble with his false teeth and a fondness for whining.) + 

He led the singing. + 

“Come on now!” he laughed. “You’ve got to welcome your new preacher! The best way is to put a lot of lung-power into it and sing like the dickens! You can all make some kind of noise. Make a lot!” + 

Himself he gave example, his deep voice rolling out in hymns of which he had always been fond: “I Love to Tell the Story” and “My Faith Looks Up to Thee.” + 

He prayed briefly⁠—he was weary of prayers in which the priest ramblingly explained to God that God really was God. This was, he said, his first day with the new flock. Let the Lord give him ways of showing them his love and his desire to serve them. + 

Before his sermon he looked from brother to brother. He loved them all, that moment; they were his regiment, and he the colonel; his ship’s crew, and he the skipper; his patients, and he the loyal physician. He began slowly, his great voice swelling to triumphant certainty as he talked. + 

Voice, sureness, presence, training, power, he had them all. Never had he so well liked his role; never had he acted so well; never had he known such sincerity of histrionic instinct. + 

He had solid doctrine for the older stalwarts. With comforting positiveness he preached that the atonement was the one supreme fact in the world. It rendered the most sickly and threadbare the equals of kings and millionaires; it demanded of the successful that they make every act a recognition of the atonement. For the young people he had plenty of anecdotes, and he was not afraid to make them laugh. + 

While he did tell the gloomy incident of the boy who was drowned while fishing on Sunday, he also gave them the humorous story of the lad who declared he wouldn’t go to school, “because it said in the Twenty-third Psalm that the Lord made him lie down in green pastures, and he sure did prefer that to school!” + 

For all of them, but particularly for Cleo, sitting at the organ, her hands clasped in her lap, her eyes loyal, he winged into poetry. + 

To preach the good news of the gospel, ah! That was not, as the wicked pretended, a weak, sniveling, sanctimonious thing! It was a job for strong men and resolute women. For this, the Methodist missionaries had faced the ferocious lion and the treacherous fevers of the jungle, the poisonous cold of the Arctic, the parching desert and the fields of battle. Were we to be less heroic than they? Here, now, in Banjo Crossing, there was no triumph of business so stirring, no despairing need of a sick friend so urgent, as the call to tell blinded and perishing sinners the necessity of repentance. + 

“Repentance⁠—repentance⁠—repentance⁠—in the name of the Lord God!” + 

His superb voice trumpeted it, and in Cleo’s eyes were inspired tears. + 

Beyond controversy, it was the best sermon ever heard in Banjo Crossing. And they told him so as he cheerily shook hands with them at the door. “Enjoyed your discourse a lot, Reverend!” + 

And Cleo came to him, her two hands out, and he almost kissed her. + 