"Well," he thought, with a sigh, "I have done my best, and I must make
it up out of my own pocket."

Then he settled himself to listen to the sermon.

The preacher, a battered-looking individual of between fifty and sixty
years of age, was gaunt with recent sickness, patient and unimaginative
in aspect. He preached extemporarily, with the aid of notes; and it
cannot be said that his discourse was remarkable for interest, at any
rate in its beginning. Doubtless the sparse congregation, so prone to
slumber, discouraged him; for offering exhortations to empty benches is
but weary work. Indeed he was meditating the advisability of bringing
his argument to an abrupt conclusion when, chancing to glance round, he
became aware that he had at least one sympathetic listener, his host,
the Rev. Thomas Owen.

From that moment the sermon improved by degrees, till at length it
reached a really high level of excellence. Ceasing from rhetoric, the
speaker began to tell of his own experience and sufferings in the Cause
amongst savage tribes; for he himself was a missionary of many years
standing. He told how once he and a companion had been sent to a
nation, who named themselves the Sons of Fire because their god was the
lightning, if indeed they could be said to boast any gods other than
the Spear and the King. In simple language he narrated his terrible
adventures among these savages, the murder of his companion by command
of the Council of Wizards, and his own flight for his life; a tale
so interesting and vivid that even the bucolic sleepers awakened and
listened open-mouthed.