bitants of a pleasant place, and
anticipating an eternal abode in an inconceivably delightful paradise.
But then there was the awful chance of missing it! And the reluctant
youth, dragged to this melancholy scene, who avenged themselves by
giving select imitations of deaconian eloquence for the amusement of
young friends,--what was to become of _them_? It was such thoughts,
doubtless, that gave to those excellent people their gloomy habit of
mind; and if their creed expressed the literal truth respecting man's
destiny, character, and duty, terror alone was rational, and laughter
was hideous and defiant mockery. What room in a benevolent heart for
joy, when a point of time, a moment's space removed us to that
heavenly place, or shut us up in hell?

From the time when we were accustomed to attend such meetings, long
ago, we never saw a Friday-evening meeting till the other night, when
we found ourselves in the lecture-room of Plymouth Church.

The room is large, very lofty, brilliantly lighted by reflectors
affixed to the ceiling, and, except the scarlet cushions on the
settees, void of upholstery. It was filled full with a cheerful
company, not one of whom seemed to have on more or richer clothes than
she had the moral strength to wear. Content and pleasant expectation
sat on every countenance, as when people have come to a festival, and
await the summons to the banquet. No pulpit, or anything like a
pulpit, cast a shadow over the scene; but in its stead there was a
rather large platform, raised two steps, covered with dark green
canvas, and having upon it a very small table and one chair. The
red-cushioned settees were so arranged as to enclose the green
platform all about, except on one side; so that he who should sit upon
it would appear to be in the midst of the people, raised above them
that all might see him, yet still among them and one of them. At one
side of the platform, but on the floor of the room, among the settees,
there was a piano open. Mr. Beecher sat near by, reading what appeared
to be a letter of three or four sheets. The whole scene was so little
like what we commonly understand by the word "meeting," the people
there were so little in a "meeting" state of mind, and the subsequent
proceedings were so informal, unstudied, and social, that, in
attempting to give this account of them, we almost feel as if we were
reporting for print the conversation of a private evening party.
Anything more unlike an