"Harm!" echoed Gibbs. "Why, Mr. Gladwish, if you could but have seen the faces of the people! And then presently he began to call sinners to repentance with such power as I never witnessed—no, not when he was preaching in our chapel two years ago. He spoke of wrath and judgment until the whole field was full of the sound of crying and groaning. But he seemed continually strengthened, and went on, until first one fell, and then another. They dropped down just like dead when the arrows of conviction entered their souls. And the cries of some of them were awful to hear. Then there was weeping, and a kind of hard breathing and panting from breasts oppressed with the weight of sin; and then, mixed with those sounds, the rejoicing aloud of believers and those who received assurance. But through all the preacher's voice rose above the tumult, and it seemed to me almost a manifest miracle that he should be able to make himself heard so clearly."
"Aye," said Joel, "it was like a ship on the top of the stormy waves; now high, now low, but always above the raging waters."
There was a short silence. Those present looked first at each other and then at old Max, who sat motionless and grim, with his elbow on the table, and his chin resting on his clenched hand.
"And did you really see any of the poor creeturs as was took?" asked Mrs. Gladwish of the widow Thimbleby.
"Took, ma'am?"
"Took with fits, or whatever it was."
"Oh! yes; I see several. There was a fine fresh-coloured young man, which is a butcher out Duckwell way—Mr. Seth'll likely know him—and he dropped down just like a bullock. And then he stamped, and struggled, and grew an awful dark red colour in the face, and tore up the grass with his hands; such was the power of conviction. And at last he lay like a log, and 'twas an hour, or more, before he come to. But when he did, he had got peace and his burthen was taken away, thanks be!"
"And there was a girl, too, very poor and sickly-looking," said Joel. "And when the power of the Lord came upon her she went into a kind of trance. Her eyes were open, but she saw nothing. Tears were falling down her cheeks, but they were tears of joy; for she kept on saying, 'How Thou hast loved sinners!' over and over again. And there was such a smile on her face! When we go to Heaven, I expect we shall see the angels smile like that!"
"And the man himself—the preacher—did he seem filled with joy and peace?" asked Jackson, covertly malicious.
"Why, that is the strange thing!" returned Richard Gibbs, with frank simplicity. "Although he was doing this great work, and witnessing the mercies of the Lord descend on the people like manna, yet Mr. Powell had such a look of deep sorrow on his face as I never saw. It was a kind of a fixed, hopeless look. He said, 'I speak to you out of a dark dungeon, but you are in the light. Give thanks and rejoice, and hasten to make your calling and election sure. Those who dwell in the blackness of the shadow could tell you terrible things.'"