This fable of defeat and redemption, of innocence and the knowledge of evil, unfolds against a backdrop of camp meetings, revivals, gospel singers, flamboyant evangelists. Of mysterious birth and eccentric upbringing, self-taught, apprenticed to an itinerant preacher, Sister Patsy has a gift, a power to move great crowds of people and to inspire intense devotion in a few. But on a stormy summer night in 1939, in a back-street immigrant chapel in New York City, forces opposed to her are gathering strength. Sister Patsy has new lessons to learn in this night, lessons of freedom, of courage, of responsibility. Illustrated with pen and ink drawings by Virgil Burnett.