Then Coot said in a slow, loud voice, “Oh, God, it is thee we ask for help! We, thy people, who hath sought you in the hour of a terrible storm!”

Nobody reacted. No amens. Only a few people clearing their throats.

Tough crowd.

So Coot waited longer. The pause was the most powerful tool a preacher had. If you paused long enough, people would start weeping of their own volition. E. P. once told him that pure silence could do more than a whole sermon.

E. P. once said that he’d seen J. Wilbur Chaplain preach in Atlanta and say only ten words, and the place came unglued. If you kept a room silent for long enough, people would either start bawling or fainting. If they cried, it was a good service. If they fainted, it was a great one.

Coot’s silence lasted for another three minutes. Not a single chair creak, dry cough, or ladybug sneeze was heard.

Coot went on in a soft voice, “Breathe fire from heaven on your people, O Lord. Shake the dust from their bones . . .”

Coot had just come up with that last line. A nice touch, he thought.

A woman in the audience stood first. Coot stared at her. Normally he would’ve stretched his hand toward her and shouted, “The power of the Lord!” but he was feeling more dramatic today.

He drew his hand back and formed an imaginary baseball bat in his fists. Then he swung toward her like he was swinging at a four-seam fastball. The woman fell backward just like she’d been paid to do. Only she put more emphasis into this fall than she usually did. Coot had heard she’d been given a pay increase a few days earlier, ever since her sciatica started acting up and she’d threatened to leave.

Another man stood. Eyes closed, palms toward the sky. Coot motioned his hand toward the man like a baseball player swinging at a seventh-inning pitch, full count, bottom of the inning.

“The power of the Holy Spirit!” Coot shouted.

Crack! Goodbye, Daddy, that train is leaving the station.

The man fell backward. The man’s nickname was Chowder. Coot had known him for most of his life. Sometimes Chowder could fall so well, people thought he was dead.

When Chowder fell, the crowd gasped. Several folks started crying. Crying was good.

Coot was batting one hundred.

Another man rose to his feet. This man was the real thing. A stranger. A farmer. Farmers were hard to read. You could never tell how farmers would react. They were reserved people by nature, quiet, steady, and skeptical. Some wouldn’t fall down even if you cut their legs off with a jackknife. Then again, others would cluck like chickens for Jesus.

Coot breathed inward, then swung his imaginary bat. “The power of God!”

The man just blinked for a few seconds. Finally he collapsed and wiggled on the floor.

Home run.