CHAPTER XLVI.
IN ANOTHER CHURCH.
While thus one body of Christian believers worshipped, another was assembled in the Methodist chapel in John Street, where Aunt Martha usually went.
A vast congregation crowded every part of the church.

They swarmed upon the pulpit stairs, upon the gallery railings, and wherever a foot could press itself to stand, or room be found to sit.

As the young preacher, Summerfield, rose in the pulpit, every eye in the throng turned to him and watched his slight, short figure--his sweet blue eye, and his face of earnest expression and a kind of fiery sweetness.

He closed his eyes and lifted his hands in prayer; and the great responsibility of speaking to that multitude of human beings of their most momentous interests evidently so filled and possessed him, that in the prayer he seemed to yearn for strength and the gifts of grace so earnestly--he cried, so as if his heart were bursting, "Help, Lord, or I perish!" that the great congregation, murmuring with sobs, with gasps and sighs, echoed solemnly, as if it had but one voice, and it were muffled in tears, "Help, Lord, or I perish!" When the prayer was ended a hymn was sung by all the people, to a quick, martial melody, and seemed to leave them nervously awake to whatever should be said.

The preacher, with the sweet boyish face, began his sermon gently, and in a winning voice.