And she led it in a sweet high treble that must have surprised William and even the angels in Heaven, if they were expecting to hear the petition in the ordinary masculine bass which is usually characteristic of such petitions. But I was going to tell how disconcerting it was to William to serve people who were apparently religious and worldly-minded at the same time. He could not reconcile this kind of diphthong living with his notions of piety. At least their sins lay heavily on his conscience. One Sabbath morning in June he entered the pulpit in a Sinai mood, determined to read the Church Rules and to apply them severely. He began by selecting a condemnatory Psalm, took his text simply as a threat from Jeremiah in one of his bad moods, and after a severe hymn and a mournful Rachel prayer he arose, folded his spectacles and fixed his eyes burningly upon the innocent faces of his congregation, which had a "What have we done?" expression on them that would have moved an angel to impatience. "Brethren and sisters," he said after a frightful spiritual pause, "it is my duty this morning to call you back out of the far country into which you have gone, to your Father's house. I blame myself for your dreadful condition. I have not had the courage to tell you of your faults as a preacher should tell his people when he sees them wandering in the forbidden paths of worldliness and sin. I have not been a faithful shepherd to you, and doubtless the Lord will lay your sins upon my head. But this morning I am resolved to do my duty by you, no matter what it costs." The congregation took on the expression of a child about to be laid across the parent's knee. But when he opened the Discipline and proceeded to read the Rules, following each with solemn, almost personal applications to conditions under his very nose, in his own church, their countenances underwent a lightning change of almost happy relief. Never can I forget the naive sweetness with which those people turned up their untroubled eyes to William and received his thundering exhortations. They seemed proud of his courage--for, indeed, he nearly broke his heart condemning them--and at the same time they seemed to be bearing with him as they would bear with the vagaries of a good and loving old father.