The visitors took their departure with evident regret, albeit their interest in the occasion was more attributable to unsatisfied curiosity than to concurrence in all that the stranger had said.
"He can talk Bible by the yard," said one.
"Yes, and show what it means better than a regular minister," said another.
"He said he had a mission among us," chimed in a third; "I wonder what it can be?"
The parting on the veranda was one in which friendly feelings prevailed all around, and the meeting on the morrow, when the second of the grand fundamental principles of the gospel was to be explained, seemed uppermost in every mind.
CHAPTER V.
FURTHER DISCUSSION OF THE FIRST PRINCIPLES.
The audience had increased in numbers when the time for the continuance of the gospel exposition arrived. Rev. Fitzallen was not present; he had an engagement elsewhere, was the word he left; but his absence was compensated for by the presence of two or three others.
But little time was spent in formality, and a beginning was effected by our legal friend saying:
"Mr. Durant, you closed last night with a definition of the first principle in the series of steps to be taken by the convert to Christianity, with a promise that tonight we should have the second explained. Will you now proceed to fulfill the promise?"