Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/60

 wrought into the very fibre of his soul. As a preacher he spoke with authority. He was narrow and dogmatic in his interpretations of the Bible, but his very narrowness and dogmatism were of his flesh and blood, elements of his power. He never stooped to controversy. He simply announced the Truth. The wise received it. The fools rejected it and were damned. That was all there was to it.

But it was in his public prayers that he was at his best. Here all the wealth of tenderness of a great soul was laid bare. In these prayers he had the subtle genius that could find the way direct into the hearts of the people before him, realise as his own their sins and sorrows, their burdens and hopes and dreams and fears, and then, when he had made them his own, he could give them the wings of deathless words and carry them up to the heart of God. He prayed in a low soft tone of voice; it was like an honest earnest child pleading with his father. What a hush fell on the people when these prayers began! With what breathless suspense every earnest soul followed him!

Before and during the war, the gallery of this church, which was built and reserved for the negroes, was always crowded with dusky listeners that hung spellbound on his words. Now there were only a few, perhaps a dozen, and they were growing fewer. Some new and mysterious power was at work among the negroes, sowing the seeds of distrust and suspicion. He wondered what it could be. He had always loved to preach to these simple hearted children of nature, and watch the flash of resistless emotion sweep their dark faces. He had baptised over five hundred of them into the fellowship of the churches in the village and the county during the ten years of his ministry.

He determined to find out the cause of this desertion