Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/81

Rh Berthollet seated himself, bowing his forehead to his hands. Twice after this he arose, and again addressed the assembly. After the beautiful hymn of praise,—

“When time shall be no longer; when the finite shall have given place to the infinite,”

he drew a picture from these words of the time when all created beings, united in the kingdom of God's glory, should unite in singing praises to the Redeemer of the world.

During the pauses between the singing and the speaking, you could hear the low whisper of the wood, and the murmuring of thousands of small insects, which also, in their way, joined in the solemn worship. The clear, mild sky, gleamed through the waving branches of the pine trees; it was a moment of perfect, peaceful beauty and harmony, and a moment of unspeakable inward emotion,—a foretaste of the condition of the completed being! But, turned from the assembly, and with his powerful brow pressed against the trunk of a pine tree which he had embraced, stood the preacher, himself almost overpowered by the words with which he had shaken his audience; the veins swollen on the temples, and the beating of the pulsation visible!

Still one more hymn, still one more prayer of thanksgiving, and the pastors dismissed the assembly. The people took a quiet and cordial leave, one of another, and all hastened, each his own way, whilst the sun was yet high, that there might be time,