ce
is a hard one, because strength and patience are failing him to speak the
difficult word, and do the difficult deed.

Chapter 9

Mr. Tryan showed no such symptoms of weakness on the critical Sunday. He
unhesitatingly rejected the suggestion that he should be taken to church
in Mr. Landor's carriage--a proposition which that gentleman made as an
amendment on the original plan, when the rumours of meditated insult
became alarming. Mr. Tryan declared he would have no precautions taken,
but would simply trust in God and his good cause. Some of his more timid
friends thought this conduct rather defiant than wise, and reflecting
that a mob has great talents for impromptu, and that legal redress is
imperfect satisfaction for having one's head broken with a brickbat, were
beginning to question their consciences very closely as to whether it was
not a duty they owed to their families to stay at home on Sunday evening.
These timorous persons, however, were in a small minority, and the
generality of Mr. Tryan's friends and hearers rather exulted in an
opportunity of braving insult for the sake of a preacher to whom they
were attached on personal as well as doctrinal grounds. Miss Pratt spoke
of Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, and observed that the present crisis
afforded an occasion for emulating their heroism even in these degenerate
times; while less highly instructed persons, whose memories were not well
stored with precedents, simply expressed their determination, as Mr.
Jerome had done, to 'stan' by' the preacher and his cause, believing it
to be the 'cause of God'.

On Sunday evening, then, at a quarter past six, Mr. Tryan, setting out
from Mr. Landor's with a party of his friends who had assembled there,
was soon joined by two other groups from Mr. Pratt's and Mr. Dunn's; and
stray persons on their way to church naturally falling into rank behind
this leading file, by the time they reached the entrance of Orchard
Street, Mr. Tryan's friends formed a considerable procession, walking
three or four abreast. It was in Orchard Street, and towards the church
gates, that the chief crowd was collected; and at Mr. Dempster's
drawing-room window, on the upper floor, a more select assembly of
Anti-Tryanites were gathered to witness the entertaining spectacle of the
Tryanites walking to church amidst the jeers and hootings of the crowd.

To prompt the popular wit with appropriate sobriquets, numerous copies of
Mr. Dempster