Ten verses in all they sang, each consisting of the triple repeating of one line. Betty listened with the distaste of an educated music lover, yet she was oddly fascinated by the strength that showed in every note of the shouted hymn. These Methodists hurled their joy and confidence in God like a gauntlet of defiance at some unseen foe, and Percy's blood tingled. He recalled a morning on the hills of Spain, before the battle of Vimiero, when he had been with Wellington's army. There was the same intense sense of many men held together for one thing, and swayed absolutely by one man's words; but here, both the Commander and Enemy of these Methodists were of the other world, and according to Percy's arid philosophy, probably did not exist. He had fed his mind on Rousseau and Tom Paine, till he believed the miraculous and supernatural were scientifically impossible, and he felt irritated at the very tangible faith of these people in intangible possibilities. The congregation were seated again, and George Ferguson in his regimentals, a splash of scarlet in that hall of grays and drabs, stood at the preacher's desk. He was a slightly built man, about twenty-four, and in no sense an orator, but he had a good voice and delivery, and believed so intensely in what he said that his simple words had a certain power. He was telling his own story--"I was born August 1, 1786, in Derry, Ireland. My parents were respectable and in comfortable circumstances, but though members of the Church of England, had no knowledge of spiritual things. I was allowed to follow my own inclination and became very wicked and profane. The one exception to the godlessness round me was an aunt--a Methodist--who grieved at the way I was growing up, and would talk to me of my soul. So I became anxious, fearing to lie down to sleep lest I should wake in hell. I would lie awake groaning and sobbing, 'Oh, God, have mercy on me.' I went whenever I could with my aunt to class meetings and preachings, and at one I wept openly, saying when spoken to--'I am so wicked. I am not washed in the Blood, and I am afraid I shall be lost. May God have mercy on me.' The preacher and class prayed with me, and then he said, laying his hand on my head, 'George, you will yet go to preach the Gospel to sinners.' So I obtained grace, and resolved to turn from my sinful manner of life, being then seven."