The lost hunter: A tale of early times

by John Turvill Adams

"I guess," said Miss Green, "he feels kind o' awkward. Look how he's folded his arms. It's so long since he's been to meeting or conference, if he was ever in such a place before; he don't know how to behave."

"There's no sort o' set about his clothes," observed Miss Thompson.
"They look as if he made them himself."

"Perhaps he did, but they're good enough to go with Faith Armstrong's cloak" (which had been made by a rival artiste), responded Miss Green. "What dark colors she wears, no variety, and how dreadful old they make her look!"

"Hush!" said Miss Thompson, "the deacon's going to open."

During the colloquy of the two spinsters a grave, respectable-looking man, somewhat advanced in years, had taken a seat behind the reading-desk, and opening the large Bible that lay upon it, selected a chapter, and now invited the attention of the audience to its contents. Upon its conclusion he gave out a hymn, the tune of which was announced by another person, who immediately on naming it pulled out a pitch-pipe from his pocket and making a slight sound, furnished the starting note. The singing proceeded principally from a certain part of the room, as if by some understanding the singers had been collected together, although scattered sounds also, of either rumbling bass or shrill treble whose trembling modulations betrayed the advanced age of the performers, were here and there heard. Some of these guerrilla passages were sadly out of time and tune, and according to the humor of the hearer might either provoke a smile or start a tear. The gay and thoughtless might, indeed, laugh at the wavering and undecided notes, but to the reflecting mind there was something profoundly pathetic in the feeble tribute to the praise of their Maker, of those whose voices in the ordinary course of nature must soon be silent in the grave.

After the singing was ended, the person who had hitherto officiated invited Deacon Baldwin, calling him by name, to make a prayer. Hereupon the deacon rose, and folding his hands complied with the request, while most of the congregation respectfully bent forward, or covered their faces with their handkerchiefs. The prayer evidently came from a sincere and earnest heart, but contained nothing that requires it should be recorded. Another hymn was then sung, upon the conclusion of which followed the sermon.

The person who came forward to perform this office was a short, thick-set man, of middle age, with a bull neck. His features were harsh and severe, and stamped with an expression of mortification, though the gross animality of the mouth and chin too plainly revealed how many and desperate were the conflicts it must have cost him to become a saint. As he passed to the reading-desk his clothes brushed Holden, who shrunk from the touch. The Solitary looked up, but as if what he saw was displeasing, he averted his face and shut his eyes.

The first thing done by Davenport on reaching the desk, and casting a furtive glance around, was to draw an East India silk handkerchief out of his pocket, and having noticed a spittoon by his side, to blow his nose sonorously. He then cleared his throat two or three times, and commenced reading.

It happened, singularly enough, that the subject was prophecy, considered as evidence of the divine inspiration of the Scriptures. The writer, after referring to the fulfillment of many prophecies contained in the Old Testament, came to those in the New, and amongst others he spoke of that in which Christ alludes to the destruction of Jerusalem. He said that even in the times of the Apostles, there were persons who, by putting too literal a construction upon the words, were misled into believing that the end of the world was at hand, and that there had never been a time when there were not victims to the same delusion.

It was impossible, with reference to the condition of Holden's mind, to have selected either a topic or reader more unsuitable. The aversion he had manifested at first increased every moment. It was one of those antipathies as unquestionable as they are unaccountable. It at first exhibited itself in restlessness, and an inability to remain quiet, and afterwards in half-suppressed groans and sighs. If he opened his eyes and looked at the reader, he saw a devilish figure, with a malignant leer glaring at him; if he shut them to exclude the disagreeable image it was converted into a thousand smaller figures, dancing up and down like motes in a distempered vision, all wearing that intolerable grin, while the whole time a hissing sound, as if it came from a snake, whispered in his ears temptations to some deadly sin. It was a trial the shattered nerves of the enthusiast were ill qualified to bear, and, finally, a torture beyond his powers of endurance. The very force of the reasons urged by the writer distressed him more and more. They seemed to his disordered imagination the subtle enticements of an evil spirit to lure him from the truth, and Davenport an emissary of Satan, if not the arch-deceiver himself. No adequate answers to doctrines which he was persuaded were false presented themselves to his mind, and this he ascribed to some hellish spell, which fettered his reason, and must soon be broken, or he was lost. Mentally, then, first ejaculating a prayer, he suddenly sprung to his feet, and in a loud voice bade the reader to stop.