range of intellectual analysis. Nor could she have told how much later,
since the passage of time had gone unnoticed. Curiosities, doubts,
passions, longings, antagonisms--all these seemed--as the most natural
thing in the world--to have been fused into one common but ineffable
emotion. Such, at least, was the impression to which Alison startlingly
awoke. All the while she had been conscious of Hodder, from the moment
she had heard his voice in the chancel; but somehow this consciousness of
him had melted, imperceptibly, into that of the great congregation, once
divided against itself, which had now achieved unity of soul.

The mystery as to how this had been effected was the more elusive when
she considered the absence of all methods which might have been deemed
revivalistic. Few of those around her evinced a familiarity with the
historic service. And then occurred to her his explanation of
personality as the medium by which all truth is revealed, by which the
current of religion, the motive power in all history, is transmitted.
Surely this was the explanation, if it might be called one! That
tingling sense of a pervading spirit which was his,--and yet not his.
He was the incandescent medium, and yet, paradoxically, gained in
identity and individuality and was inseparable from the thing itself.

She could not see him. A pillar hid the chancel from her view.

The service, to which she had objected as archaic, became subordinate,
spiritualized, dominated by the personality. Hodder had departed from
the usual custom by giving out the page of the psalter: and the verses,
the throbbing responses which arose from every corner of the church,
assumed a new significance, the vision of the ancient seer revived. One
verse he read resounded with prophecy.