“There’s just one more thing I want to say before I sit down. I’m not here to talk. I’m here to hold this chair down and I mean to do it. It’s a hard thing I ask. I want Spiritualists to keep away on Sunday nights. They take up the room that inquirers should have. You can have the morning service. But it’s better for the cause that there should be room for the stranger. You’ve had it. Thank God for it. Give the other man a chance.” The president plumped back into his chair.
Mr. Peeble sprang to his feet. He was clearly the general utility man who emerges in every society and probably becomes its autocrat. With his thin, eager face and darting hands he was more than a live wire—he was a whole bundle of live wires. Electricity seemed to crackle from his finger-tips.
“Hymn One!” he shrieked.
A harmonium droned and the audience rose. It was a fine hymn and lustily sung:
“The world hath felt a quickening breath
From Heaven’s eternal shore,
And souls triumphant over death
Return to earth once more.”
There was a ring of exultation in the voices as the refrain rolled out:
“For this we hold our Jubilee
For this with joy we sing,
‘Oh Grave, where is thy victory,
Oh Death, where is thy sting?’”
Yes, they were in earnest, these people. And they did not appear to be mentally weaker than their fellows. And yet both Enid and Malone felt a sensation of great pity as they looked at them. How sad to be deceived upon so intimate a matter as this, to be duped by impostors who used their most sacred feelings and their beloved dead as counters with which to cheat them. What did they know of the laws of evidence, of the cold, immutable decrees of scientific law? Poor earnest, honest, deluded people!
“Now!” screamed Mr. Peeble. “We shall ask Mr. Munro from Australia to give us the invocation.”
A wild-looking old man with a shaggy beard and slumbering fire in his eyes rose up and stood for a few seconds with his gaze cast down. Then he began a prayer, very simple, very unpremeditated. Malone jotted down the first sentence: “Oh, Father, we are very ignorant folk and do not well know how to approach you, but we will pray to you the best we know how.” It was all cast in that humble key. Enid and Malone exchanged a swift glance of appreciation.