But the beauty of the weather, or terror of the inevitable subscription, prevailed against him.

Hence his disappointment.
"Well," he thought, with a sigh, "I have done my best, and I must make it up out of my own pocket." Then he settled himself to listen to the sermon.
The preacher, a battered-looking individual of between fifty and sixty years of age, was gaunt with recent sickness, patient and unimaginative in aspect.

He preached extemporarily, with the aid of notes; and it cannot be said that his discourse was remarkable for interest, at any rate in its beginning.

Doubtless the sparse congregation, so prone to slumber, discouraged him; for offering exhortations to empty benches is but weary work.

Indeed he was meditating the advisability of bringing his argument to an abrupt conclusion when, chancing to glance round, he became aware that he had at least one sympathetic listener, his host, the Rev.Thomas Owen.
From that moment the sermon improved by degrees, till at length it reached a really high level of excellence.