Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. I, 1866.djvu/103

Rh red heat which gave force to his belief and his teaching. He was susceptible concerning the true office of deacons in the primitive church, and his small nervous body was jarred from head to foot by the concussion of an argument to which he saw no answer. In fact, the only moments when he could be said to be really conscious of his body, were when he trembled under the pressure of some agitating thought.

He was meditating on the text for his Sunday morning sermon: "And all the people said, Amen"—a mere mustard-seed of a text, which had split at first only into two divisions, "What was said," and "Who said it;" but these were growing into a many-branched discourse, and the preacher's eyes dilated, and a smile played about his mouth till, as his manner was, when he felt happily inspired, he had begun to utter his thoughts aloud in the varied measure and cadence habitual to him, changing from a rapid but distinct undertone to a loud emphatic rallentando.

"My brethren, do you think that great shout was raised in Israel by each man's waiting to say 'amen' till his neighbours had said amen? Do you think there will ever be a great shout for the right—the shout of a nation as of one man,