His tremendous bulk was impressive in a bright purple robe lined with yellow silk and trimmed with mink. Beneath it he wore a black taffeta suit with white piping and silver buttons. His fingernails, untrimmed since he first claimed to have spoken with God, were more than three inches in length. They curled like strange talons, and were painted different colors. On each finger he wore a diamond ring. His smooth black face with its big buck teeth and popping eyes was ageless; but his long grizzly hair, on which he wore a black silk cap, was snow-white.

Silence descended over the multitude like night.

"I now baptize you, who have seen the glory and harkened to the call, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost," he said.

Sugar Stonewall picked up the basket of lunch Alberta had prepared for the celebration afterward and beat it for the sidelines. And not a moment too soon.

At the completion of Sweet Prophet's words, fire hoses at each end of the block, manned by stalwart deacons, were turned on simultaneously. Streams of water shot high into the air and came down upon white-clad figures in a veritable deluge.

Drenched by the cold holy water pouring from heaven, the converts, most of whom were women, were seized by uncontrollable ecstasy. They danced and screamed and shouted and moaned, carried away with emotion, caught up in a mass delirium. They sang and prayed, gasped and strangled in a frenzy of exaltation.

A buxom woman cried, "My skin may be black, but my soul ain't got no color."

"Wash me as white as snow," another screamed, tearing off her dress so that the purifying water could wash her naked skin.

"I had faith, didn't I, God?" Alberta chanted, caught up in the mass hysteria, her transfigured face turned toward heaven. Water flowed unnoticed into her nostrils, almost strangling her. "I had faith!" she continued, sputtering. "And you didn't fail me, God."