7 Nights of Salvation

Brother Ben Bailey and his Pentecostals - or snake charmers, as my grandmother referred to them - arrived on the island in July. They set up shop on the ball field, erecting a huge white tent and filling it with unpainted wooden benches. Homemade signs advertising their revival services and the importance of repentance were posted on buildings and trees and stuffed under doors. Sin was about to meet salvation - devils would be cast out, sinners would embrace Jesus and miracles were expected. The village, roots deeply and firmly planted in the Baptist faith, was skeptical. Sin was about the only entertainment available.

Since you couldn't see the ball field from the main road, a banner was soon put up across the dirt turnoff. In black letters over a foot high, it proclaimed "7 NIGHTS OF SALVATION - ALL WELCOME". Other banners appeared around the village, smaller but still attention getting - "GET RIGHT WITH GOD AND BRO. BEN", "HEALING HANDS WILL HEAL YOUR WOUNDS", and "JESUS SAVES THROUGH BRO. BEN". Rumors began to fly about Brother Ben Bailey - he handled snakes, he spoke in tongues, he could make the crippled walk, he had visions, his preaching took on the Devil Himself. It was said he'd been touched by God and brought out of a life of total sin and degredation to preach The Word. He had firsthand knowledge of the perils of whiskey and loose women. Brother Ben knew about evil and while he despised the sin, he loved the sinners because Brother Ben was SAVED and with the help of the Holy Spirit, he would SAVE us as well, PRAISE GOD.

Tommyrot! my grandmother snatched the flyer I had brought home and threw it in the stove. Malarkey! Selling snakeoil to folks who ought to knew better! Damn fool ought to be strung up. Nana's opinion was that there were a lot of damn fools in the world and that most of them deserved to be strung up but Brother Ben seemed to have made it to the top of her list. Old fraud's seen Elmer Gantry one too many times she declared more to herself than to me.

In actual fact, Brother Ben was a middle aged, silver haired, traveling man who had gravitated to God when his luck at cards had run out. He wore a well fitting white suit, carried a well worn Bible, and preached The Word to anyone who would listen. After a night of drinking and carousing, he had indeed woken up in a cold Chicago gutter, sick, badly beaten and stone cold broke and having decided that it was one gutter too many, he put away the cards and the whiskey and went straight. No miracles, no snake handling, no visions - just a man who had changed his life out of desperation and despair.

As advertised, he preached seven charismatic sermons in seven nights. There was singing and prayer and calls to God for forgiveness, sinners repented and the collection baskets were filled nightly. On the eighth day, Brother Ben and his Pentecostals vanished as suddenly as they'd arrived. If anyone had been saved or healed, they kept it to themselves and even if they hadn't, it had been, Nana admitted grudgingly, one hell of a show.