strong, wise, and loving
words were needed, it was then; if ever mortal man had living texts
before his eyes to illustrate and illuminate his thought, it was there;
and if ever hearts were prompted to devoutest self-abnegation, it was
in the work which brought us to anything but a Chapel of Ease. But some
spiritual paralysis seemed to have befallen our pastor; for, though
many faces turned toward him, full of the dumb hunger that often comes
to men when suffering or danger brings then nearer to the heart of
things, they were offered the chaff of divinity, and its wheat was left
for less needy gleaners, who knew where to look. Even the fine old
Bible stories, which may be made as lifelike as any history of our day,
by a vivid fancy and pictorial diction, were robbed of all their charms
by dry explanations and literal applications, instead of being useful
and pleasant lessons to those men, whom weakness had rendered as docile
as children in a father's hands.

I watched the listless countenances all about me, while a mild Daniel
was moralizing in a den of utterly uninteresting lions; while Shadrach,
Meshech, and Abednego were leisurely passing through the fiery furnace,
where, I sadly feared, some of us sincerely wished they had remained as
permanencies; while the Temple of Solomon was laboriously erected, with
minute descriptions of the process, and any quantity of bells and
pomegranates on the raiment of the priests. Listless they were at the
beginning, and listless at the end; but the instant some stirring old
hymn was given out, sleepy eyes brightened, lounging figures sat erect,
and many a poor lad rose up in his bed, or stretch an eager hand for
the book, while all broke out with a heartiness that proved that
somewhere at the core of even the most abandoned, there still glowed
some remnant of the native piety that flows in music from the heart of
every little child. Even the big rebel joined, and boomed away in a
thunderous bass, singing--

"Salvation! let the echoes fly,"

as energetically as if he felt the need of a speedy execution of the
command.

That was the pleasantest moment of the hour, for then it seemed a
homelike and happy spot; the groups of men looking over one another's
shoulders as they sang; the few silent figures in the beds; here and
there a woman noiselessly performing some necessary duty, and singing
as she worked; while in the arm chair standing in the midst, I placed,
for my own satisf