Page:Scarlet Sister Mary (1928).pdf/149

 powerful, heathen king who held the children of Israel in bondage. Cinder was a lot like King Pharaoh, who was stiff-necked and hard-hearted and mean.

Brer Dee took as the theme of his talk the command given to Pharaoh by the Lord God: "Let my people go." He shouted as loud as he could, over and over the earnest, high-pitched, half-sung words, "Let my people go!"

The rhythm of the sentence, "Let my people go" shifted in Mary's ears into a call to Cinder away off in town, "Let my July go!" A human voice could not go so far, but Brer Dee said the Holy Spirit was all-powerful. Time and distance were nothing to it, and it could reach to the ends of the earth.

If that were true the Holy Spirit might take her prayers right now, through the night, across all thdse miles of swamps and river and fields and forests clear to town to make Cinder let July go and to fetch him home to Unex and her. Tears trickled down Mary's face as she tried to plead with God to send the Holy Spirit for July, but Brer Dee suddenly closed the Book with a snap and called on Andrew, the blacksmith, to pray, since his own voice was too hoarse to say another word. The strain of trying to move sinful hearts to prayer and repentance