The service began with a hymn, then a chapter in the Bible—the first of St. John's gospel—then a prayer, and then came the announcement of the text, taken from the same chapter: "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." The style was so plain that a child could have understood it; plain with the simplicity of high cultivation and much reading, and also that of deep feeling. It was evident that the preacher meant every word he said. Calista drank it in as a man dying in the alkaline desert would take in a draught of cool, fair water brought from a mountain spring. Here was the Saviour she needed—he who was called Jesus, because he came to save his people from their sins; because his blood cleansed away sin; because he suffered in their stead; because he blotted out transgression in the past and promised help for the future. As the preacher went on in his even, mellow voice, so clear, so calm and tender, setting forth Jesus Christ crucified in the place of sinners, Calista's head sank down on the bench before her, and her full heart overflowed at her. The question was no longer with her, "Can I forgive Aunt Priscilla?" but "What, oh, what can I do for him who has done so much for me; who has paid the debt I owed; who has so loved me all these years that I have never thought of him at all?" Calista's was not the only bowed head in the assembly. There was a universal silence and hush, and even the careless and wild young men whose presence in the back part of the room had caused Cassius and others some anxiety sat hushed and silent. The sermon was short—too short for Calista, who would have liked to sit an hour longer. The speaker announced that a prayer meeting would be held in the same place on Wednesday evening, and that after the service, he should be glad to converse with any one who wished for further religious instruction. Then a hymn was sung and the congregation dismissed. Two or three of the better class of neighbors came up to speak to the minister. And one grave, formal old man, after saying good-evening, turned to Cassius and reproved him, with some asperity, for letting in Tom Edgar and his companions. "Why, Mr. Heminway, I thought they were just the people who needed the gospel," answered Cassius, no ways abashed. "I suppose Tom Edgar has a soul to be saved, and that the Lord died to save it, and he ain't any worse than the publicans and sinners that same Lord preached to and sat down to table with." "That was very different," said the old man. "Tom Edgar is a swearing, fighting, drunken sot,—the pest of the whole neighborhood." "So much the more need of his having the gospel preached to him," returned Cassius. "Ain't that so, Mr. Alger?" "Certainly," answered the minister, promptly. "Was that tall, dark young man by the door Tom Edgar? I looked at him several times, and thought him quiet and attentive enough. He sings very finely."