"
Tess soon went onward into the village, her footsteps echoing against
the houses as though it were a place of the dead. Nearing the
central part, her echoes were intruded on by other sounds; and seeing
the barn not far off the road, she guessed these to be the utterances
of the preacher.
His voice became so distinct in the still clear air that she could
soon catch his sentences, though she was on the closed side of
the barn. The sermon, as might be expected, was of the extremest
antinomian type; on justification by faith, as expounded in the
theology of St Paul. This fixed idea of the rhapsodist was delivered
with animated enthusiasm, in a manner entirely declamatory, for he
had plainly no skill as a dialectician. Although Tess had not heard
the beginning of the address, she learnt what the text had been from
its constant iteration--
"O foolish galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye
should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ
hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?"
Tess was all the more interested, as she stood listening behind, in
finding that the preacher's doctrine was a vehement form of the view
of Angel's father, and her interest intensified when the speaker
began to detail his own spiritual experiences of how he had come by
those views.
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