"We'll never forget what you've done for us, Mr. Byars."
"If we've been lukewarm before, vicar, 't will be all boiling now!"
"Praise God that He has spoken at last, and God forgive us for forgetting Him."
The air was electric with love and praise.
"Will you say a prayer, vicar?" asked one of the churchwardens. "It seems the time for prayer and a word or two like."
The company knelt down.
It was a curious scene. In the richly furnished drawing-room the group of portly men and matrons knelt at chairs and sofas, stolid, respectable, and middle-aged.
But here and there a shoulder shook with suppressed emotion, a faint sob was heard. This, to many of them there, was the greatest spiritual moment they had ever known. Confirmation, communion, all the episodic mile-stones of the professing Christian's life had been experienced and passed decorously enough. But the inward fire had not been there. The deep certainty of God's mysterious commune with the brain, the deep love for Christ which glows so purely and steadfastly among the saints still on earth—these were coming to them now.
And, even as the fires of the Paraclete had descended upon the Apostles many centuries before, so now the Holy Spirit began to stir and move these Christians at Walktown.
The vicar offered up the joy and thanks of his people. He prayed that, in His mercy, God would never again let such extreme darkness descend upon the world. Even as He had said, "Neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done."