Captain Davenant read the Lessons as if he were declaiming the Riot Act. The good man believed that the young men present were shirking hounds to be rated and whipped up to their Master. Under the lash of his rasping voice, even Mrs. Yellam, louder in fervent response than usual, winced and frowned. The Parson, in his three-decker, wondered whether a discreet hint would serve to tone down the zeal of this militant Christian, who positively wallowed in the slaughters and comminations of the Old Testament. The Captain, as a stout upholder of Church and Crown, must be handled delicately; a dry old stick breaks so easily. Uncle sat with his wife in the Mucklow pew, half-way down the nave. He carried a high head, and thought of the half-sovereigns soon to be rattling in and out of his pocket. Jane sat beside him, sniffing audibly. Alfred Yellam and Fancy Broomfield were opposite to each other, with the aisle between them. Hamlin ascended the pulpit. He chose for his text a maxim of Bishop Berkeley: "Where the heart is right, there is true patriotism." The shuffling of skirts and occasional coughs soon died down. Sir Geoffrey, from his coign of vantage in the chancel, perceived with some astonishment that Hamlin had a script on the cushion in front of him. As a rule he preached without notes. The Squire inferred rightly that the Parson deemed his theme to be of such paramount importance that he distrusted the effect of one careless, unconsidered word. Hamlin, however, possessed long sight. He could read his typewritten sheets without lifting them. Few in the congregation were aware of them. He began with the curt statement that the actual word "patriotism" is not to be found in the Bible. This challenged attention immediately. The Squire fidgeted. He considered that Hamlin had made a shockingly bad start. A weapon had been thrust into the hands of recalcitrants. This apprehension, however, vanished as the preacher set forth convincingly, in words that children could understand, the obsessing love of country, of the Promised Land, which informed and sustained God's Chosen People during forty weary years in the wilderness. With a swift transition, he passed to the New Testament, dwelling, with more insistence, upon the love that had inspired simple, obscure men to forsake home, country and kindred, to fight God's battles in new and strange countries. When he paused, before touching his real theme, he had the ears of his congregation. He indulged in no gestures, his familiar tones fell quietly. So far, what he had said was preparatory, novel neither in theme nor treatment. None knew better than he how sadly his parishioners were lacking in imagination. His success, as a preacher, had not been gained by dealing with abstractions or by inviting ill-educated persons to transplant themselves to surroundings and conditions which the wisest of moderns find difficulty in apprehending. Hamlin believed in the personal appeal.