Brother Hayward has preached many better
sermons since.

But whatever was wanting in the public services, the social meetings of
the day were a great success. Here the brethren came in with their
singing and earnest prayers, and the sisters with their Christian
testimonies, until every heart was moved. In this part of the service
Sister Hayward led off with her accustomed ability and spirit, making a
marked feature of the exercises.

The part borne by Father Chicks, as he was called, the head chief of the
Stockbridge nation, also added not a little to the interest of the
occasion. He had been but recently converted, and his heart was
overflowing. To see such a religious demonstration on his own premises
filled him with joy, and awoke within him the fiery ardor of those other
days when his burning words had swayed his people to the good or evil,
as the tempest bends the forest at its will. Tall and erect in form,
with a brow to rule an empire, he rose in the midst of the great
assembly and came forward to the stand. Every eye was fixed upon him.
Turning to the writer, that he might have assistance, if necessary, in
the use of the English, by the timely suggestion of the right word, he
proceeded to say: "Me been a great sinner, as all my people know." For
the moment he could go no farther. His noble form shook with emotion,
and his manly face was flooded with tears. The whole audience wept with
him, for his tears were sublimely eloquent. Recovering himself, he
simply added, "All me want now is to love him, Christ." Then turning to
his people, with a face as radient as the sunlight, he began to address
them in his own language. I could not understand the import of his
words, but the tones of his voice to our ears were entrancingly
eloquent. As he advanced in his address, his frame, now bearing the
weight of four score years, grew lithe and animated. Soon the whole man
was in a storm of utterance. Had there been no living voice, the
attitudes and swayings of the body, the carriage and transitions of the
head, and the faultless, yet energetic gestures of the hand, were enough
to move the human soul to the depths of its being. But to these were
added the human voice divine with its matchless cadences, now kindling
into a storm of invective, before which the audience shrank, like
shriveled leaves in autumn, then sinking to sepulchral tones that seemed
to challenge a communion with the dead; now wailing an anguish of sorrow