Only he would it were bed-time, and all well. He trembled so
when he stood up to read that he could not tell whether or not he
was speaking in a voice audible to the congregation. But as his hour
drew near, the courage to meet it drew near also, and when at length
he ascended the pulpit stairs, he was able to cast a glance across
the sea of heads to learn whether the little man was in the poor
seats. But he looked for the big head in vain.
When he read his text, it was to a congregation as listless and
indifferent as it was wont to be. He had not gone far, however,
before that change of mental condition was visible in the faces
before him, which a troop of horses would have shown by a general
forward swivelling of the ears. Wonderful to tell, they were
actually listening. But in truth it was no wonder, for seldom in
any, and assuredly never in that church, had there been heard such
an exordium to a sermon.
His text was--"Confessing your faults one to another." Having read
it with a return of the former trembling, and paused, his brain
suddenly seemed for a moment to reel under a wave of extinction that
struck it, then to float away upon it, and then to dissolve in it,
as it interpenetrated its whole mass, annihilating thought and
utterance together.
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