March, which brings to the North sharp winds and gray days, brings to
the sand-hill country its season of greatest beauty.
Straight up from the unpromising soil springs the green--the pines bud
and blossom, everywhere there is the delicate tracery of pale leafage,
there is the white of dogwood, the pink of peach trees and of apple
bloom, and again the white of cherry trees and of bridal bush. There
are amethystine vistas, and emerald vistas, and vistas of rose and
saffron--the cardinals burn with a red flame in the magnolias, the
mocking-birds sing in the moonlight.
It was through the awakened world that Roger drove one Sunday to preach
to his people.
He did not call it preaching. As yet his humility gave it no such
important name. He simply went into the sand-hills and talked to those
who were eager to hear. Beginning with the boy, he had found that
these thirsty souls drank at any spring. The boys listened breathless
to his tales of chivalry, the men to his tales of what other men had
achieved, the women were reached by stories of what their children
might be, and the children rose to his bait of fairy books and of
colored pictures.
Gradually he had gone beyond the tales of chivalry and the achievements
of men. Gradually he had brought them up and up. Other men had
preached to them, but their preaching had not been linked with lessons
of living. Others had cried, "Repent," but not one of them had laid
emphasis on the fact that repentance was evidenced by the life which
followed.
But Roger stood among them, his young face grave, his wonderful voice
persuasive, and told them what it meant to be--saved. Planting hope
first in their hearts, he led them toward the Christ-ideal. Manhood,
he said, at its best was godlike; one must have purity, energy,
education, growth.
And they, who listened, began to see that it was a spiritual as well as
practical thing to set their houses in order, to plant and to till and
to make the soil produce. They saw in the future a community which was
orderly and law-abiding, they saw their children brought out of the
bondage of ignorance and into the freedom of knowledge. And they saw
more than that--they saw the Vision, faintly at first, but with
ever-increasing clearness.
It was a wonderful task which Roger had set for himself, and he threw
himself into his work with flaming energy. He hired a buggy and a
little fat horse, and spent some of his nights en route in the houses
of his friends along the way; other nights--and these were the ones he
liked best--he slept under the pines. With John Ballard's old Bible
under his arm, and his prayer-book in his pocket, he went forth each
week, and always he found a congregation ready and waiting.