the top, and not the bottom, as is the usual way. The clergyman
now ascended the pulpit, arrayed in his black gown. The
congregation composed themselves to attention, as did also my
companions, who fixed their eyes upon the clergyman with a certain
strange immovable stare, which I believe to be peculiar to their
race. The clergyman gave out his text, and began to preach. He
was a tall, gentlemanly man, seemingly between fifty and sixty,
with greyish hair; his features were very handsome, but with a
somewhat melancholy cast: the tones of his voice were rich and
noble, but also with somewhat of melancholy in them. The text
which he gave out was the following one, "In what would a man be
profited, provided he gained the whole world, and lost his own
soul?"

And on this text the clergyman preached long and well: he did not
read his sermon, but spoke it extempore; his doing so rather
surprised and offended me at first; I was not used to such a style
of preaching in a church devoted to the religion of my country. I
compared it within my mind with the style of preaching used by the
high-church rector in the old church of pretty D---, and I thought
to myself it was very different, and being very different I did not
like it, and I thought to myself how scandalized the people of D---
would have been had they heard it, and I figured to myself how
indignant the high-church clerk would have been had any clergyman
got up in the church of D--- and preached in such a manner. Did it
not savour strongly of dissent, methodism, and similar low stuff?
Surely it did; why, the Methodist I had heard preach on the heath
above the old city, preached in the same manner--at least he
preached extempore; ay, and something like the present clergyman;
for the Methodist spoke very zealously and with great feeling, and