The compressed lips and motionless countenance of Thomas showed that he
was thinking more than he was prepared to clothe in words. After
standing thus for a few moments, he lifted his head, and returning no
answer to Annie's exposition of her feelings, bade her _good-bye_, and
walked away.
The drift of Thomas's reflections I shall now help my reader to see.
Their appetite for prophecy having assuaged with the assuaging flood,
the people of Glamerton had no capacity for excitement left. The
consequence was that the congregations, especially the evening
congregations, began at once to diminish. Having once ceased to feel
anxiety about some vague impending vengeance, comparatively few chose
to be rated any longer about their sins; while some seeing how in the
_spate_ the righteous were taken and the wicked left, felt themselves
aggrieved, and staid at home on the Sunday nights. Nor was the
deterioration confined to the congregations. Not only had the novelty
of Mr Turnbull's style worn off, but he felt himself that he could not
preach with the same fervour as before; the fact being that he had
exhausted the electric region of the spiritual brain, and without
repose it could never fulminate again.
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