Page:Teeftallow-1926.djvu/148
most despair, but I know that the grace of God encompasseth all things. But you must come at once.
Our collection for a two-weeks' revival seldom falls under $300.
Your brother in Christ,
Perry Northcutt.
In the course of a few days came an answer to this very sincere letter setting a date for the meeting and enclosing circulars to be distributed in the village. In a few hours all the store windows in Irontown held posters showing the picture of a hard-faced man with a Bible in his hand, and below the picture was the catch line, "Keep the Devil on the Jump." Then came press notices:
"A power for good."—Smithtown Herald.
"Reverend Blackman cleaned up the bootleggers in our town in a red-hot revival of three weeks' duration."—Banksville Express.
"Reverend Blackman, the Big Bertha of Heaven, blasted hell out of Goodlettsville."—Goodlettsville Inquirer.
Appended was a list of the topics on which the Reverend Blackman would preach:
"The Dance Evil, or Foxtrotting to Hell."
"Evolution, or From College to Damnation."
"Novel Reading, or From Print to Perdition."
"Scarlet Women and Dingy Men." (For men only.)
"Bobbed Hair and Bobbed Morals." (For women only.)
"There Is a City Not Built with Hands." (Farewell sermon.)
When these posters appeared in a flutter of anticipation set up in Irontown. In the meagre intellectual and emotional life of the hill country these annual revivals occupied the place filled in more liberal communities by the theatre, the symphony, the lecture, the fashion show, and the church. The only glimpse the hill folk ever received of philosophy, æsthetics, literature, science, art, and metaphysics was given them by such travelling revivalists as Blackman. However, the preacher touched these topics in a negative way; he spoke of them only to condemn them; to discourage any