"And what, my dear brethren, what do you imagine and conjecture our holy penman meant by 'walking?' Think ye he meant a physical walking, and a moving, and a going backward and forward thus? (represented by Mr. N.'s proceeding, or rather marching, à la militaire, several times from end to end of the staging). No, sirs!—it was not a literal walking and locomotion, a moving and agitating of the natural legs and limbs. No, sirs!—no!—but it was a moral, a spiritual, a religious, ay! yes! a philosophical and metaphorically figurative walking, our holy apostle meant!
"Philosophic, did I say? Yes: philosophic did I say. For religion is the most philosophical thing in the universe—ay! throughout the whole expansive infinitude of the divine empire. Tell me, deluded infidels and mistaken unbelievers! tell me, ain't philosophy what's according to the consistency of nature's regular laws? and what's more onsentaneous and homogeneous to man's sublimated moral nature, than religion? Yes! tell me! Yes! yes! I am for a philosophical religion, and a philosophical religion is for me—ay! we are mutually made and formed for this beautiful reciprocality!
"And yet some say we make too much noise—even some of our respected Woodville merchants—(meaning the author). But what's worth making a noise about in the dark mundane of our terrestrial sphere, if religion ain't? People always, and everywhere in all places, make most noise about what they opine to be most precious. See! yon banner streaming with golden stars and glorious stripes over congregated troops, on the Fourth of July, that ever-memorable—that never-to-be-forgotten day, which celebrates the grand annual anniversary of our nation's liberty and independence! when our forefathers and ancestors burst asunder and tore forever off the iron chains of political thraldom! and rose in plenitude, ay! in the magnificence of their grandeur, and crushed their oppressors!—yes! and hurled down dark despotism from the lofty pinnacle of its summit altitude, where she was seated on her liberty-crushing throne, and hurled her out of her iron chariot, as her wheels thundered over the prostrate slaves of power!—(Amen)—Yes!—hark!—we make a noise about that! But what's civil liberty to religious liberty, and emancipated disenthraldom from the dark despotism of yonder terrific prince of darkness! whose broad, black, piniony wings spread wide o'er the ærial concave like a dense cloud upon a murky sky?—(A-a-men!)—And ain't it, ye men of yards and measures, philosophical to make a noise about this?—(Amen!—yes!) Yes! yes! and I ain't ashamed to rejoice and shout aloud. Ay! as long as the prophet was ordered to stamp with his foot, I will stamp with my foot;—(here he stamped till the platform trembled for its safety)—and to smite with his hand, I will smite with my hand—(slapping alternate hands on alternate thighs.)—Yes! and I will shout, too!—and cry aloud, and spare not—glory! for—ever!—(and here his voice rang out like the sweet, clear tones of a bugle).
"And, therefore, my dear sisters and brethren, let us walk worthy of our vocation; not with the natural legs of the physical corporation, but in the apostolical way, with the metaphysical and figurative legs of the mind—(here Mr. N. caught some one smiling).—Take care, sinner, take care! curl not the scornful nose—I'm willing to be a fool for religion's sake—but turn not up the scornful nose—do its ministers no harm! Sinner, mark me!—in yon deep and tangled grove, where tall, aspiring trees wave green and lofty heads in the free air of balmy skies—there sinner, an hour ago, when the sonorous horn called on our embattled hosts to go to private prayer! an hour ago, in yonder grove I knelt and prayed for you!—(hooh!)—yes! I prayed some poor soul might be given for my hire!—and he promised me one!—(Glory! glory!—ah! give him one!)—laughing sinner!—take care!—I'll have you!—(Grant it—amen!—ooohoo!) Look out, I'm going to fire—(assuming the attitude of rifle-shooting)—bang!—may He send that through your heart!—may it pierce clean home through joints and marrow!—and let all people say amen!—(and here amen was said, and not in the tame style of the American Archbishop of Canterbury's cathedral, be assured; but whether the spiritual bullet hit the chap aimed at, I never learned; if it did, his groans were inaudible in the alarming thunder of that amen).
"Ay! ay! that's the way! that's the way! don't be ashamed of your vocation—that's the way to walk and let your light shine! Now, some wise folks despise light, and call for miracles: but when we can't have one kind of light, let us be philosophical, and take another. For my part, when I'm bogging about these dark woods, far away in the silent, somber shadows, I rejoice in sunshine; and would prefer it of choice, rather than all other celestial and translucent luminaries: but when the gentle fanning zephyrs of the shadowy night breathe soft among the trembling leaves and sprays of the darkening forests, then I rejoice in moonshine: and when the moonshine dims and pales away, with the waning silvery queen of heaven in her azure zone, I look up to the blue concave of the circular vault, and rejoice in starlight. No! no! no! any light!—give us any light rather than none!—(Ah, do, good—!) Yes! yes! we are the light of the world, and so let us let our light shine, whether sunshine, or moonshine, or starlight!—(oohoo!)—and then the poor benighted sinner, bogging about this terraqueous, but dark and mundane sphere, will have a light like a pole star of the distant north, to point and guide him to the sunlit climes of yonder world of bright and blazing bliss!"—(A-a-amen!)
Such is part of the sermon. His concluding prayer ended thus—(Divine names omitted).
"Oh, come down! come, come down! down! now!—to-night!—do wonders then! come down in might! come down in power! let salvation roll! Come down! come! and let the earthquaking mighty noise of thy thundering chariot wheels be heard, and felt, and seen, and experienced in the warring elements of our spiritualized hearts!"
During the prayer, many petitions and expressions were so rapturously and decidedly encored, that our friend kindly repeated them; and sometimes, like public singers, with handsome variations; and many petitions by amateur zealots were put forth, without any notice of the current prayer offered by Mr. N., yet evidently having in view some elegancy of his sermon. And not a few petitions, I regret to say, seemed to misapprehend the drift and scope of the preacher. One of this sort was the earnest ejaculations of an old and worthy brother, who, in a hollow, sepulchral, and rather growly voice, bellowed out in a very beautiful part of the grand prayer: "Oohhoo! take away moonshine!"
But our first performance was to be at night: and at the first toot of the tin horn we assembled in expectation of a "good time." For, 1. All day preparation had been making for the night; and the actors seemed evidently in restraint, as in mere rehearsal: 2. The night better suits displays and scenes of any kind: but 3. The African was to preach; and rumor had said, "he was a most powerful big preacher, that could stir up folks mighty quick, and use up the ole feller in less than no time."
After prefatory prayers and hymns, and pithy exhortations by several brothers of the Circassian breed, our dusky divine, the Rev. Mizraim Ham, commenced his sermon, founded on the duel between David and Goliath.