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Re: Who was Harry Morse ?
1920 Sacramento
The Old Pentecostal Mission, which, for several years, operated in a Third street basement, not far from K, has been disbanded. « The low ceiling that once echoed to songs of praise or of pity, and to the deep-voiced, solemn tones of prayer, and the stained walls that gave back and multiplied the sobs and walls of repentant sinners, now hear only the rollicking click of billiard balls, gay laughter and noisy jest, interspersed by occasional cusswords, as some carelessly unchalked tip slides ineffectually from the polished surface of the ivory cue ball. There are many lights now. in this basement, where of old were but few. The faces one sees there are, if not always precisely happy faces, at least not gloomy nor dull, nor miserable nor despondent ones. Of old, on the cheerless winter evenings, when the rain was falling and the saloons held no welcome except for those with cash, the broken, the weary, the sick, the homeless and despairing; the battered derelicts of the seas of life; the drug-soaked, whiskey-logged. sin-scarred. were wont to stumble down the steps and through the door and seat themselves hesitatingly on the benches. There they would slouch, dull of eye. spirits sodden with the soddenness of the hopeless; nodding: sermon. song and testimony: depart- ing in silence after the benediction, to seek whatever poor shelter circumstances might be good enough to grant them in boxcar, 'barn or vacant house or hallway. Thus, the moat of them. But a few always remained, to beg of the minister. or the brothers or the sisters, the small price of a bed or a meal. And, unless they had done it too often, or were too obviously and completely drunk, their plea was seldom disregarded. But the brothers and sisters meet no more. And the little organ and the frail little woman with the pale face and the sweet voice who used to sing as she played upon It, and the big. straight-standing. squareshouldered man who was their chief, have disappeared from Third street.
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