At the first, I had an impious thought, due partly may be to my unfamiliarity with the bustle of the streets, and partly no doubt to the companionship of my kinsman, who ever brought with him, as it were, a breath of that wide world wherein he lived and schemed, that I was returning to a narrow hemisphere wherein men had no manner of business. But after a little a Carmelite monk began to preach, and the fire of his discourse, as it rose and fell, now harsh with passion, now musical with tenderness, roused me to a consciousness of the holy ground on which I stood. I bent forward, not so much listening as watching those who listened. I noted how the sermon gained upon them, how their faces grew expectant. Even Lord Bolingbroke lost his indifference; he moved a step or two nearer to the preacher. His attitude lost the lazy grace he was wont to affect; he stood satisfied, and I knew that there was no man on earth so critical in his judgment of an orator.
I was assured then of the sway which the monk asserted over his congregation, and the assurance pierced to my very soul.
For I knew the cause of his power; one had not to listen long to realise that. The man was sincere. This was no pleasurable discourse waved delicately like a scented handkerchief to tease the senses of his auditors. Sincerity burnt like a clear flame kindling his words, and compelled belief. Of the matter of his sermon I took no note. Once or twice "the Eve of St. Bartholomew" came thundering at my ears, but for the most part it seemed that he cried "hypocrite" at me, until I feared that the congregation would rise in their seats in that dim church, and a mob of white faces gibber and mow the accusation. I stood fascinated, unable to move, until at last Bolingbroke came back to me, and, taking my arm, led me out of church.
"You study late of nights?" he asked, looking into my face.
"The preacher wrought on me."
"He has eloquence," he agreed; "but it was a dead man speaking."
I stopped in the street, and stared at him.
"Yes," he continued; "he warns, he exhorts, like the figure in the picture there, but the man himself—what of him, Lawrence? He is the mere instrument of his eloquence—its servant, not its master. He is the priest—dead to the world in which he has his being, a shadow with a voice, a dead man speaking."
"Nay," I broke in, "the words were born at his heart. He was sincere, and therefore he lives. The dead man speaking is the hypocrite."
I cried the words in a very passion of self-reproach, and without thought of the man I addressed them to.