Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/346

Rh and rapture as I then saw beaming from the countenances of these children of Africa: the class-leaders in particular were regularly beside themselves; they clapped their hands, laughed, and floods of light streamed from their eyes. Some of these countenances are impressed upon my memory as some of the most expressive and the most full of feeling that I ever saw. Why do not the painters of the New World avail themselves of such scenes and such countenances? The delight occasioned by the speaker's narrative would here and there have produced convulsions, had not Mr. Martin, the principal preacher of the assembly, indicated, by the movements of his hand from his pulpit, its discontinuance, and immediately the increasingly excited utterance ceased. Already during the night had he warned the people against these convulsive outbreaks, as being wrong, and disturbing both to themselves and others. The Wesleyan preacher left the pulpit amid continued expressions of delight from the people.

The principal sermon of the day was preached about eleven o'clock by a lawyer from one of the neighbouring States, a tall, thin gentleman, with strongly marked keen features, and deep-set brilliant eyes. He preached about the Last Judgment, and described in a most lively manner, “the fork-like, cloven flames, the thunder, the general destruction of all things,” and described it as possibly near at hand. “As yet, indeed,” exclaimed he, “I have not felt the earth tremble under my feet; it yet seems to stand firm,” and he stamped vehemently on the pulpit floor; “and as yet I hear not the rolling of the thunder of doom; but it may nevertheless be at hand,” and so on; and he admonished the people therefore immediately to repent and be converted.

Spite of the strength of the subject, and spite of the power in the delineation, there was a something dry and soulless in the manner in which it was presented, which caused it to fail of its effect with the congregation. People