and carried it softly, just above the breath, with the tone which is neither a sigh, nor a cry, nor a whisper, but that harmony of all which makes of music prayer. He must have entered on the wave of this strain; opinions differed afterwards as to this: some said one thing, some another; but it was found that most of the audience had not observed the entrance of the preacher at all. The choir ceased, and he was; and no more could be said. The church was well filled, though not over-crowded, and the decorous rustle of a fashionable audience in the interval preceding worship stirred through the house. In the natural inattention of the moment, it was not remarkable that most of the people failed to notice the strange preacher until he was among them. But to the church officer, whose mind was preoccupied with the supply, there was something almost startling in the manner of his approach. The vestryman's uneasy eyes were not conscious of having slipped their guard upon the chancel for a moment; he had but turned his head politely, though a bit impatiently, to reply to some trivial remark of his wife's, when, behold, the preacher stood before him. Afterwards it was rumored that two or three persons in the audience had not been taken by surprise in this way, but had fully observed the manner of the stranger's entrance; yet these persons, when they were sought, were difficult to find. There was one shabby woman who sat in the gallery among the "poor" seats; she was clad in rusty mourning, and had a pale and patient face, quite familiar to the audience, for she was a faithful church-goer, and had attended Saint Agatha's for many years. It came to be said, through the sexton's gossip or otherwise, that this poor woman had seen the preacher's approach quite clearly, and had been much moved thereat; but when some effort was made to find her, and to question her on this point, unexpected obstacles arose,--she was an obscure person, serving in some menial capacity for floating employers; she was accustomed to slip in and out of the church hurriedly, both late and early,--and nothing of importance was added from this quarter to the general interest which attended the eccentricities of the supply. The stranger was a man a trifle above the ordinary height, of majestic mien and carriage, and with the lofty head that indicates both fearlessness and purity of nature. As he glided to his place behind the lectern, a hush struck the frivolous audience, as if it had been smitten by an angel's wing: such power is there in noble novelty, and in the authority of a high heart. When had the similar of this preacher led the service in that venerable and fashionable house of worship? In what past years had his counterpart served them? Whom did he resemble of the long line of eminent clerical teachers with whose qualities this elect people was familiar? What had been his history, his ecclesiastical position, his social connections?