Page:An Old English Home and Its Dependencies.djvu/134

120 of emerald enamel on nose and eyebrows, cheek and chin. The congregation was worked up as by a magnetic influence: it sighed, allelujahed, groaned, swayed, the women laid hold of each other's tresses and pulled as they rocked themselves, and when the preacher banged on the desk, the native males in sympathy banged on each other's pates as well. Some screamed, some fell on their backs and kicked. Indeed, never since the conversion of the island had there been known such a rousing revival as on this occasion; and great was the exultation of the natives to think that one of their own preachers by his fervour had "busted up" an English-made pulpit. And now a few words on the old gallery at the west end of the church, at present disappearing everywhere. In every man's life there have been mistakes upon which he looks back with self-reproach. Such a mistake was that which I made on entering on the incumbency of East Mersea, in Essex.