The story that Reynolds Bartram had "stood up for prayers" went through Bruceton and the surrounding country like wildfire.

Scarcely anyone believed it, no matter by whom he was told: the informer might be a person of undoubted character, but the information was simply incredible.

People would not believe such a thing unless they could see it with their own eyes and hear it with their own ears: so the special meetings became at once so largely attended that they were held in the body of the church instead of the little basement called the "lecture-room." The most entirely amazed person in the town was Deacon Quickset.

Never before had he been absent, unless sick, from any special effort of his church to persuade the sinners to flee from the wrath to come; but when Dr.Guide announced that he should ask Sam Kimper to assist him in the special meetings, the deacon's conscience bade him halt and consider.
Dr.Guide was wrong,--there could be no doubt of that: would it be right, then, merely for the sake of apparent peace and unity, for him, the deacon, to seem to agree with his pastor's peculiar views?
The deacon made it a matter of prayer, and the result was that he remained at home.
That Reynolds Bartram had been the first-fruits of the new special effort was a statement which the deacon denied as soon as he heard it.
Frequent repetition of the annoying story soon began to impress him with its probability, and finally a brother deacon, who had been present, set all doubt at rest by the assertion that Bartram had not only been converted, but was assisting at the meetings.

When, however, the attending deacon went on to inform his absentee brother that Bartram had attributed his awakening and conversion to the influence of Sam Kimper, Deacon Quickset lost his temper, and exclaimed,-- "It's all a confounded lie! It's a put-up job!" "Brother Quickset!" exclaimed the astonished associate, with a most reproving look.
"Oh, I don't mean that _you lie_," explained the angry defender of the faith.