“Who is it?”
“First, do you ever go to church?”
“Always.”
“Where?”
Aunt Martha did not directly reply. She was lost in reverie.
“It is a youth like an angel,” said she at length, with an air of curious excitement, as if talking to herself. “His voice is music, but it strikes my soul through and through, and I am frightened and in agony, as if I had been pierced with the flaming sword that waves over the gate of Paradise. The light of his words makes my sin blacker and more loathsome. Oh! what crowds there are! How he walks upon a sea of sinners, with their uplifted faces, like waves white with terror! How fierce his denunciation! How sweet the words of promise he speaks! ‘The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.’”
She had risen from her chair, and stood with her eyes lifted in a singular condition of mental exaltation, which gave a lyrical tone and flow to her words.
“That is Summerfield,” said Lawrence Newt. “Yes, he is a wonderful youth. I have heard him myself, and thought that I saw the fire of Whitfield, and heard the sweetness of Charles Wesley. I have been into the old John Street meeting-house, where the crowds hung out at the windows and doors like swarming bees clustered upon a hive. He swayed them as a wind bends a grain-field, Miss Amy. He swept them away like a mountain stream. He is an Irishman, with all the fervor of Irish genius. But,” continued Lawrence Newt, turning again to Aunt Martha, “it is a very different man I want you to hear.”
She looked at him inquiringly.
“His name is Channing. He comes from Boston.”