You are viewing this site as a JJC student. Change
Test What You Have Learned
Instructions: Read the passage and the questions that follow,
and click on the correct answer. If wrong, try again. Use the numbered
buttons under the Answer box to move to the next question. After the
last question, click the GO ON button to see the next passage.
Passage 4 of 4
This passage was adapted from Salvation from Langston
Hughes. In “The Short Prose Reader,” 6th edition, by Gilbert H. Muller and Harvey
S. Wiener. McGraw-Hill Companies, 1991.
Salvation
I was saved from sin when I was going on thirteen. But I was not
really saved. It happened like this. There was a big revival at my Auntie Reed's church. Every
night for weeks there had been much preaching, singing, praying, and shouting, and some very
hardened sinners had been brought to Christ, and the membership of the church had grown by
leaps and bounds. Then just before the revival ended, they held a special meeting for children,
"to bring the young lambs to the fold." That night I was escorted to the front row
with all the other young sinners, who had not yet been brought to Jesus. My aunt told me that
when you were saved you saw a light, and something happened to you inside! And Jesus came
into your life! And God was with you from then on! She said you could see and hear and feel
Jesus in your soul. I believed her, so I sat there calmly in the hot, crowded church, waiting
for Jesus to come to me.
The preacher preached a wonderful rhythmical sermon, about the ninety and nine safe in the
fold, but one little lamb was left out in the cold. Then he said:
"Won't you come? Won't you come to Jesus? Young lambs, won't you come?" And he held
out his arms to all us young sinners there on the mourners' bench. But most of us just sat
there, waiting to see Jesus.
Finally all the young people had gone to the altar and were
saved, but for one boy and me. He was named Wesley. It was very hot in the church, and getting
late now. Finally Wesley said to me in a whisper: "God damn! I'm tired o' sitting here.
Let's get up and be saved." So he got up and was saved.
Then I was left all alone on the mourners' bench. My aunt came
and knelt at my knees and cried, while prayers and songs swirled all around me in the little
church. And I kept waiting serenely for Jesus, waiting, waiting—but he didn't come.
I wanted something to happen to me, but nothing happened. Nothing!
Now it was really getting late. I began to be ashamed of myself,
holding everything up so long. I began to wonder what God thought about Wesley, who certainly
hadn't seen Jesus either, but who was now sitting proudly on the platform, swinging his knickerbockered
legs and grinning down at me. God had not struck Wesley dead for taking his name in vain or
for lying in the temple. So I decided that maybe to save further trouble, I'd better lie,
too, and say that Jesus had come, and get up and be saved.
So I got up.
Suddenly the whole room broke into a sea of shouting; waves
of rejoicing swept the place. When things quieted down, in a hushed silence, all the new young
lambs were blessed in the name of God. Then joyous singing filled the room.
That night, for the last time in my
life—for I was a big boy twelve years old—I cried. I cried,
in bed alone, and couldn't stop.
