Anon the minister comes in, with reverend countenance and careful step. Every eye is bent on him, with affectionate respect, as he places his hat on the bright little table under the desk, and mounts up to, and shuts himself in, the pulpit. Instinctively we all rise when _he_ does, and invoke the divine presence; though we are conscious that that presence has been with us, and around us, ever since we entered the house. When the rustle of re-seating ourselves, like that of many dry leaves shaken by the wind, has subsided, how calmly and soothingly the voice of the speaker falls on our ears, reading out of the holy book! It is a familiar passage; a passage which I had heard often and often before I could read it, or understand all the words; one which I learned by heart almost as soon as I could learn any thing; which I have heard repeated week after week for many years; and yet now every syllable is sounded so distinctly that the picture comes up as vividly as ever, and I cannot help listening. I forget for the time all that is to come; submit myself to follow slowly along with the words of the speaker, and feel my quiet heart overflowing, as it receives the beautiful story, with its simple and sublime moral. While I sit and suffer these thoughts, like the spontaneous images of a dream, to pass over my mind, the hymn has been read, and my reveries are broken by music from the choir, floating softly down. I am in no mood to criticise, and it is not difficult to imagine that the sounds do not proceed from mere human lips; but that beings who take a deeper interest in man's welfare than he himself takes, are clothing their words of exhortation or comfort in melody, and speaking at once to our heart and understanding. If this was not fully imagined before, it becomes almost real when the last long-drawn note dies away, as though the sweet minstrels had accomplished their mission to this earthly tabernacle, and had departed toward their own abode.