Before her she saw no face but that of the minister, between
which and her, beyond the front of the gallery, lay a gulfy space,
where, down in the bottom, sat other listening souls, with upturned
faces and eyes, unseen of Annie, all their regards converging upon the
countenance of the minister. He was a thin-faced cadaverous man, with a
self-severe saintly look, one to whom religion was clearly a reality,
though not so clearly a gladness, one whose opinions???vague
half-monstrous embodiments of truth--helped to give him a consciousness
of the life which sprung from a source far deeper than his
consciousness could reach. I wonder if one will ever be able to
understand the worship of his childhood--that revering upward look
which must have been founded on a reality, however much after
experience may have shown the supposed grounds of reverence to be
untenable. The moment Annie looked in the face of Mr Brown, she
submitted absolutely; she enshrined him and worshipped him with an
awful reverence. Nor to the end of her days did she lose this feeling
towards him. True, she came to see that he was a man of ordinary
stature, and that some of the religious views which he held in common
with his brethren were dishonouring of God, and therefore could not be
elevating to the creature.
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