Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness."

II Corinthians 6:14

PROLOGUE

1958

The boy kept his eyes down, staring at the top of the wooden pew in front of him. He imperceptibly shifted his body's weight as he changed his Scofield from right to left hand, hoping that this would not attract the attention of the dark female figure three rows up, moving steadily toward him. But the woman stalked forward as the muffled blend of voices crescendoed to another agonizing phrase--"Just as I am, without one plea."
      The heat rose in his mind as he heard the words for the fourth time, this time edged with more passion and insistence than the last three times. "If you do not know at this very moment when you asked Christ into your heart; if you cannot name the year, the month, the second when you felt the cleansing blood wash over you, then you - yes, you, in the second and third rows, you are in mortal danger of eternal fire."
     She was near now, breathing heavily beside him, searching for the infinitesimal movement of his shoulder or hand or head. The fire rose in his confused mind and he knew he could not name the second or even the year of his spirit's magical cleansing, its union with Christ. Or he could not say for sure if this union had ever taken place, although it was just two months ago that he had raised his hand during the altar call after the third night of missionary conference. He had come forward many times before, so he knew what he must do. He knew the ropes. Last time he had been led to the Sunday School room by an enthusiastic, concerned college sophomore. They had dropped to their knees before the folding chairs and the boy had said to himself, "Now, now is the moment when I became a Christian. Now I won't be afraid, because I know the day." The older boy's hand was warm on the child's shoulder. "Your name is written in the Book of the Lamb," he had said and rose with a light in his eyes. This alarmed the younger boy because he did not feel the same interior light.
     But that was two months ago. Now he must raise his hand again. He had not been right that time before; the Lord knows when the heart isn't right and now he must raise his hand again. Through his damp lashes he could barely make out the silhouettes of his parents whose voices he knew made up part of the fearful, beckoning body of sound. They knew their times. His mother had said to him with smiling confidence that when she made her heart right with Christ--at that very moment, when she had been standing in the kitchen at her dishes--she felt a sense of calm and peace wash over her and it never went away.
     "O friends, friends, do not sit there with false confidence in your hardened hearts. Do not believe that you can escape God's eye for He sees into that darkened, calloused corner of your heart that has never known a real relationship with the Lord. You may have walked about with the whole world believing you to be saved." His voice slid down a mournful scale of laughter. "But, dear friends, God knows. God knows," the undulating voice cried over the crowd.
     And now the Reverend's dark, worn Scofield was open and he was striking its tissue pages with a beefy, blonde hand. A coarse, throaty, something between a laugh and a cry, rose deep from within his lungs and his voice rasped, ending on a forced whisper. "O, the time is short, so short. The desert blossoms like a rose. Even now the Antichrist is gathering his forces. Israel has returned, my friends, and it could be tonight that the saints will rise with Christ."
      The boy dreaded this more than anything else. His heart was pumping; he wanted to cry, or scream, or cover his ears. But he had to hear it and, because he feared it so, he knew that he was not saved. "Where will you be when the Rapture comes? What will you do when you come home one day to find your wife, your son or daughter, your mother and father gone? Gone to glory, friends, gone to glory and you--you--remain to wear the mark of the Beast. Two will be working in the field - one will be taken and the other remain behind. Will you be that one?" he sobbed into the microphone. "But one last soul might be making its final decision here tonight for Christ. One more time, folks, one more verse to give that single, lost miserable soul its final chance to come forward."
     The dark woman placed a firm hand on his back, indicating the direction of the counseling rooms. But the boy knew the way. Through a blaze of brown carpet, wooden pews, embarrassment, burning shame and longing, the boy looked up to see a cardboard Jesus in red robes, crinkled at the bottom of the door decoration, extending his hands to ancient children and sheep. They sat in one-dimensional bliss about the sandaled feet of Christ.
     Two other sinners were in the classroom--a twelve-year old girl who was sobbing at the foot of a wooden chair, and the father of one of the boy's friend. The father's suit looked tight and wrinkled across his back as he mumbled frantically into his folded hands. The boy was embarrassed to look at him. But nothing should matter. The boy had to make this the time, the moment he could remember. He intensified his determination as the congregation crooned another supplication: "To rid my soul of one dark blot, To Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot, O Lamb of God, I come, I come." Yes, this had to be the time. He knew that all those other times did not count or he would not feel it now, the wretched guilt and insecurity about his own moment. Maybe now he would be able to say when. As he lowered his slender body to the floor, the toes on his black shoes scuffed against the green linoleum.
     The woman shut the door.