It was to him a genuine crisis in his own life and that of his parish.

No man can tell until he is moved by the Divine Spirit what he may do, or how he may change the current of a lifetime of fixed habits of thought and speech and action.

Henry Maxwell did not, as we have said, yet know himself all that he was passing through, but he was conscious of a great upheaval in his definition of Christian discipleship, and he was moved with a depth of feeling he could not measure as he looked into the faces of those men and women on this occasion.
It seemed to him that the most fitting word to be spoken first was that of prayer.

He asked them all to pray with him.

And almost with the first syllable he uttered there was a distinct presence of the Spirit felt by them all.