In that ugly building,
amidst that weary praying and inharmonious singing, with that blatant
tone, and, worse than all, that merciless doctrine, there was yet
_preaching_--that rare speech of a man to his fellow-men whereby in
their inmost hearts they know that he in his inmost heart believes.
There was hardly an indifferent countenance in all that wide space
beneath, in all those far-sloping galleries above. Every conscience
hung out the red or pale flag.
When Alec ventured to look up, as he sat down after the prayer, he saw
the eyes of Thomas Crann, far away in the crowd, fixed on him. And he
felt their force, though not in the way Thomas intended. Thomas never
meant to dart _personal_ reproaches across the house of God; but Alec's
conscience told him nevertheless, stung by that glance, that he had
behaved ill to his old friend. Nor did this lessen the general feeling
which the sermon had awakened in his mind, un-self-conscious as it was,
that something ought to be done; that something was wrong in him
somewhere; that it ought to be set right somehow--a feeling which every
one in the pew shared, except one. His heart was so moth-eaten and
rusty, with the moths and the rust which Mammon brings with him when he
comes in to abide with a man, that there was not enough of it left to
make the terrible discovery that the rest of it was gone.
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