The Preacher had made a profound impression on his Boston congregation.
They were charmed by his simple direct appeal to the heart. His fiery emphasis, impassioned dogmatic faith, his tenderness and the strange pathos of his voice swept them off their feet. At night the big church was crowded to the doors, and throngs were struggling in vain to gain admittance. At the close of the services he was overwhelmed with the expressions of gratitude and heartfelt sympathy with which they thanked him for his messages.
He was feasted and dined and taken out into the parks behind spanking teams, until his head was dizzy with the unaccustomed whirl.
The Preacher went through it all with a heavy heart. Those beautiful homes with their rich carpets, handsome furniture, and those long lines of beautiful carriages in the parks, made a contrast with the agony of universal ruin which he left at home that crushed his soul.
He hastened to tell the story of Mrs. Gaston to a genial old merchant who had taken a great fancy to him.
A tear glistened in the old man’s eye as he quickly rose.
“Come right down to my store. I’ll get you a money order before the post-office closes. I’ve got tickets for you to go to the Coliseum with me to-night and hear the music!—the great Peace Jubilee. We are celebrating the return of peace and prosperity, and the preservation of the Union. It’s the greatest musical festival the world ever saw.”
The Preacher was dazed with the sense of its sublimity and the pathetic tragedy of the South that lay back of its joy.
The great Coliseum, constructed for the purpose, seated over forty thousand people. Such a crowd he had never seen gathered together within one building. The soul of the orator in him leaped with divine power as he glanced over the swaying ocean of human faces. There were twelve thousand trained voices in the chorus. He had dreamed of such music in Heaven when countless hosts of angels should gather around God’s throne. He had never expected to hear it on this earth. He was transported with a rapture that thrilled and lifted him above the consciousness of time and sense.