Fundamental: the word kindled in the hearts of women who had felt that fundamental call of the spirit, a flame of resentment that crackled and spread. Who was he, who was anybody to dictate times and seasons, when the signs of that spiritual outpouring were here and now? And so there was War in all the Free Churches which strove to fulfil themselves under the ministry of one sex alone; and Mr. Trimblerigg’s prayers and preachings were in consequence broken into shorter paragraphs than was good for them. But the violence with which those spiritual interruptions were carried out could not go on for ever; it was not in human, it was not in heavenly nature to utter messages born of the spirit with the drilled regularity and mechanism of a firing-squad. The things they said lacked conviction, did not come from their hearts or their heads, but only from their tongues and their tempers; and when in certain selected cases, Mr. Trimblerigg was inspired to pause so that they might speak as the spirit gave them utterance, the spirit left them badly in the lurch, they faltered and became dumb. For Isabel Sparling had enlisted in her cause many who were the poorest of poor speakers and had no wish whatever to become ministers; and when these heard themselves speak to a congregation which was artfully prevailed upon to listen they trembled and were afraid, and felt themselves fools. And so, for a while, in his own particular congregation, it almost seemed that Mr. Trimblerigg was on the way to restore order and recover the undivided attention of his audiences. But once again the pin-prick policy of Isabel Sparling got the better of him; and in the third year of her Church Militancy, forces of a new, a more placid, and a more undefeatable type were let loose against him. They came, they behaved themselves, they said not a word, cloven tongues of inspiration no longer descended upon them; but in the most moving passage of prayer or sermon, they would feel imperatively moved to get up and go. And with much deprecatory fuss and whispered apology, always from the centre of a well-occupied row--they would go forth and presently return again, finding that they had left book, or handbag, or handkerchief behind them, or that they had taken away their neighbour’s in mistake for their own. And it was all so politely and apologetically done that everybody, except the preacher, had to forgive them. And so it came about that after Mr. Trimblerigg had been at Bethesda for a little more than two years, he accepted with alacrity a post at the Free Evangelical centre for the organization of foreign missions. And when he went out to preach it was at short notice here, there and everywhere, where the sedulous attentions of Miss Isabel Sparling and her followers had not time to overtake him.