clerk was heard to cry for mercy. But with the third service, there came
a change, which reminded me of how once in a foreign cathedral, when the
procession filed by--the singing-men nudging each other, the
standard-bearers giggling, and the English tourists craning to see the
sight--the face of one white-haired old bishop beneath his canopy
transformed for me a foolish piece of mummery into a prayer in action.
So it was again, when the young stranger turned to us his pale clear-cut
face, solemn with an awe as rapt as if he verily stood before the throne
of Him he called upon, and felt Its glory beating on his face; then, by
that one earnest and believing presence, all was transformed and
redeemed; the old emblems recovered their first significance, the
time-worn phrases glowed with life again, and we ourselves were
altered--our very heaviness was pathetic: it was the lethargy of death
itself, and our poor sleepy prayers the strain of manacled captives
striving to be free.

The Canon's sermon did not maintain this high-strung mood, though why
not it would be difficult to say. Like all his, it was eloquent,
brilliant even, declaimed by a fine voice of wide compass, whose varying
tones he used with the skill of a practised orator. The text was "Our
conversation is in Heaven," its theme the contrast between the man of
this world, with his heart fixed upon its pomps, its vanities, its
honours, and the believer indifferent to all these, esteeming them as
dross merely compared to the heavenly treasure, the one thing needful.
Certainly the utter worthlessness of the prizes for which men labour and
so late take rest, barter their happiness, their peace, their honour,
was never more scathingly depicted. I remember the organ-like bass of
his note in passages which denounced the grovelling worship of earthly
pre-eminence and riches, the clarion-like cry with which he concluded a
stirring eulogy of the Christian's nobler service of things unseen.