“And you know they wont talking about men and women living and loving together as our Lord prescripted it here.” He pointed a firm finger at the Bible. “Not in holy matrimony. Of course not. They was talking about men and women, men and men, women and women—help me, Jesus—living together in sin. Like it wont nothing. Normal. Tolerable. Righteous. Lord, yes, it was on TV in between ‘Little House on the Prairie’ and ‘The Waltons’ so your children, my children could have been up watching this filth, as if it were as natural as a horse foaling or a chicken molting. But, dearly beloved . . . it ain’t. It just ain’t. You heard what the book said.

“Now you can say, ‘Well, Brother Barden, you ain’t liberated. You ain’t up with the times.’ And verily I say unto you . . .” He thumped the Bible. “This is my liberation, this is my salvation, my rock and my shield, my place to go when I get weary, what picks me up when I fall down, and sets my feet on solid ground. Liberated? Behind the times? Brothers and sisters, there is no time but now, and now I am telling you: It’s unclean. You heard what Paul wrote to the Romans: Unclean.”

. . . Unclean . . .

“That’s right. Unclean. That’s what it is. Unclean. And you knows it.” Reverend Barden picked up his handkerchief, wiping his face as he said, more calmly now, “I know some folks here today don’t want to hear what I got to say. Think I’m doing what you might call stepping on some toes—”

Someone in the corner, Horace believed it was old Miss Christopher, said, Step, Rev. Go on and step.

“But I can’t look at evil and turn my back. It saddens me. Oh, yes it does. To see people, especially people who were once on the path to righteousness, slip into these here ways. And you know what it is, don’t you? You know what causes it?”

What’s that, Reverend? asked Zeke.

“Why, a weak spirit. Ain’t nothing more. Can’t say the folks don’t know, cause they do. But it’s like the writer said another time: The spirit is willing—O my Jesus, help me this morning­—­but the flesh is weak. Ain’t nothing else but weak-willed people. What else is gone cause this mess, children?”

. . . Go head, Reverend, and preach, now . . .

“It’s the devil working. Like it says in James: ‘Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.’”

. . . My Jesus . . .

“You got to do like the songwriter said when he wrote:

‘Yield not to temptation