And as his voice broke forth once more in the chanting, the thunder rolled as a repetition of his summons, the lightning glared, all the mountains became visible over the woods of the abrupt declivity toward the east; and higher still above the summits was revealed a vast cloud-vista in the midst of the black night, vividly white, full of silent surging motion, with strange suggestions of bending forms, of an awful glister at the vanishing point,—darkness enveloped it, and once more the thunder pealed. As the gathering storm burst, the monotonously chanting voices seemed keyed to an awed undertone, lisping with this mighty psalm of nature,—the thunder and its echo in the mountains, the tumultuous cry of the wind, and the persistent iteration of the rain. In the intervals of its splendid periods, one might feel it a relief to hear the water timidly splashing in the little ditches that served to drain the ground on either side of the tabernacle, and the continual whisper in the pines above the primitive structure. Here and there two or three boughs hung down further than the rest, fringing the eaves. Ben Doaks noted, when the lightning flared again, that just between them the distant peak of Thunderhead loomed dimly visible,—or was it a cloud? Strain his eyes as he might, he could hardly say. For Ben Doaks was there, the first to respond to the earnest exhortations to the sinners to come forward. He had a shamefaced look as he shambled up and took his seat on the mourners’ bench, while the little dog sat unnoticed at the other end. Doaks was quick, however, to observe that one of the preachers eyed him sharply, and spoke to another, who shook his head with a gesture indeed of negation, but an expression of reluctant affirmation, and he felt sure that they recognized how often he had sat there, and that they were saying to each other that it was of no use,—he was evidently rejected by grace. Now and then low voices sounded in the midst of the singing,—the Christians urging those convicted of sin to go up and be prayed for. Others came forward. There was more stir than before; a vivid curiosity was on many faces turning about to see who was going up, who was resisting entreaty, who ought to be convicted of sin, being admirably supplied with obliquity of which to repent.