Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/52

Rh of the inward light, by so much good-humour and joy, that it was a pleasure to see him, and to hear him too; for although his phrases were pretty much the same, and the same over again, yet they were words full of Christian pith and marrow, and they were uttered with so much cordiality, that they could not do other than go straight to the heart with enlivening power. Sometimes his ideas seemed to come to an end, and he stood, as it were, seeking for a moment; but then he would begin again with what he had just now said, and his words always brought with them the same warmth and faithfulness, and he looked like a life-infusing sunbeam. And it was only as the messenger of the joy in Christ that he preached:

“Hold fast by Christ! He is the Lord! He is the mighty One! He will help. He will do everything well! Trust in Him, my sister, my brother. Call upon him. Yes. Yes. Hold fast by Christ! He is the Lord!” &c. &c.

By degrees the noise increased in the church, and became a storm of voices and cries. The words were heard, “Yes, come Lord Jesus! Come, oh come, oh glory!” and they who thus cried aloud began to leap; leapt aloft with a motion as of a cork flying out of a bottle, whilst they waved their arms and their handkerchiefs in the air, as if they were endeavouring to bring something down, and all the while crying aloud “Come, oh come!” And as they leapt, they twisted their bodies round in a sort of cork-screw fashion, and were evidently in a state of convulsion; sometimes they fell down and rolled in the aisle, amid loud, lamenting cries and groans. I saw our tropical exhorter, the man with the sun-bright countenance, talking to a young negro with a crooked nose and eyes that squinted, and he too, very soon, began to talk and to preach, as he sprung high into the air leaping up and down with incredible elasticity. Whichever way we looked in the church we saw somebody leaping up and