It gave one the impression that this was indeed a miserable, dark, despairing world, which deserved to be wrathfully destroyed, and that this miserable world was full of equally miserable, broken, sinful, sickly people.
The sermon was a little better, for somewhere hidden within him this pale young man had a spark of the divine fire, but it was so dampened by the atmosphere of the church that it never rose above a pale luminosity.
I found the service indescribably depressing.

I had an impulse to rise up and cry out--almost anything to shock these people into opening their eyes upon real life.

Indeed, though I hesitate about setting it down here, I was filled for some time with the liveliest imaginings of the following serio-comic enterprise: I would step up the aisle, take my place in front of the Chief Pharisee, wag my finger under his nose, and tell him a thing or two about the condition of the church.
"The only live thing here," I would tell him, "is the spark in that pale minister's soul; and you're doing your best to smother that." And I fully made up my mind that when he answered back in his chief-pharisaical way I would gently--but firmly remove him from his seat, shake him vigorously two or three times (men's souls have often been saved with less!), deposit him flat in the aisle, and yes--stand on him while I elucidated the situation to the audience at large.

While I confined this amusing and interesting project to the humours of the imagination I am still convinced that something of the sort would have helped enormously in clearing up the religious and moral atmosphere of the place.
I had a wonderful sensation of relief when at last I stepped out again into the clear afternoon sunshine and got a reviving glimpse of the smiling green hills and the quiet fields and the sincere trees--and felt the welcome of the friendly road.
I would have made straight for the hills, but the thought of that pale minister held me back; and I waited quietly there under the trees till he came out.

He was plainly looking for me, and asked me to wait and walk along with him, at which his four boys, whose acquaintance I had made under such thrilling circumstances earlier in the day, seemed highly delighted, and waited with me under the tree and told me a hundred important things about a certain calf, a pig, a kite, and other things at home.
Arriving at the minister's gate, I was invited in with a whole-heartedness that was altogether charming.