The preacher, in his meditations, had forgotten his congregation--a very common bit of absent-mindedness with Valentine Cook; and so, when this hymn was finished, a sister, with a rich but uncultivated soprano, started, to the tune called "Indian Philosopher," that inspiring song which begins: "Come on, my partners in distress, My comrades in this wilderness, Who still your bodies feel; Awhile forget your griefs and tears, Look forward through this vale of tears To that celestial hill." The hymn was long, and by the time it was completed the preacher, having suddenly come to himself, entered hurriedly, and pushed forward to the place arranged for him. The festoons of dried pumpkin hanging from the joists reached nearly to his head; a tallow dip, sitting in the window, shed a feeble light upon his face as he stood there, tall, gaunt, awkward, weather-beaten, with deep-sunken, weird, hazel eyes, a low forehead, a prominent nose, coarse black hair resisting yet the approach of age, and a _tout ensemble_ unpromising, but peculiar. He began immediately to repeat his hymn: "I saw one hanging on a tree In agony and blood; He fixed his languid eye on me, As near the cross I stood." His tone was monotonous, his eyes seemed to have a fascination, and the pathos of his voice, quivering with suppressed emotion, was indescribable. Before his prayer was concluded the enthusiastic Morton felt that he could follow such a leader to the world's end. He repeated his text: "_Behold, the day cometh_," and launched at once into a strongly impressive introduction about the all-pervading presence of God, until the whole house seemed full of God, and Morton found himself breathing fearfully, with a sense of God's presence and ineffable holiness. Then he took up that never-failing theme of the pioneer preacher--the sinfulness of sin--and there were suppressed cries of anguish over the whole house. Morton could hardly feel more contempt for himself than he had felt for two days past; but when the preacher advanced to his climax of the Atonement and the Forgiveness of Sins, Goodwin felt himself carried away as with a flood. In that hour, with God around, above, beneath, without and within--with a feeling that since his escape he held his life by a sort of reprieve--with the inspiring and persuasive accents of this weird prophet ringing in his ears, he cast behind him all human loves, all ambitious purposes, all recollections of theological puzzles, and set himself to a self-denying life. With one final battle he closed his conflict about Patty. He would do right at all hazards.