Soon after his first sermon he began little by little to introduce ritual into the meetings at Michaud’s, so that they became decorous; rum-drinking was postponed till after the concluding prayer, and that in itself was a triumph.  He began to feel the need of hymns, and, since he could find in French none that had associations for himself, he set about translating some of the more familiar ones, mostly those of a militant nature.  Some of them, especially “The Son of God goes forth to war,” leaped into immediate popularity and were sung two or three times in a single service.  He liked that repetition; he thought it laid the groundwork for the enthusiasm which he aroused more and more as time went on, and which he took more pains to arouse.  Nevertheless, the first time that his feverish eloquence brought tears and incoherent shoutings from the audience, he became suddenly fearful before the ecstasies which he had touched to life, he faltered, and brought his discourse to an abrupt end.  As the crowd slowly quieted and reluctantly began to drift away there flashed on him with blinding suddenness the realization that his excitement had been as great as their own; for a moment he wondered if such passion were godly.  Only for a moment, however, of course it was godly, as any rapture informed by religion must be.  He was sorry he had lost courage and stopped so soon.  These were an emotional and not an intellectual people—­if they were to be reached at all, it must be through the channels of their emotions.  Thus far he thought clearly, and that was as far as he did think, for he was discovering in himself a capacity for religious excitement that was only in part a reflex of the crowd’s fervour, and the discovery quickened and adorned the memory of the few great moments of his life.  Thus had he felt when he resolved to take orders, thus, although in a less degree, because he had been doubtful and afraid, had he felt when he heard the Macedonian cry from this West Indian island.  He had swayed the crowd also as he had always believed that he could sway crowds if only the spirit would burn in him brightly enough; he had no doubt that he could sway them again, govern them completely perhaps.  That possibility was cause for prayerful and lonely consideration, for meditation among the hills, whence he might draw strength.  He hired a pony forthwith and set out for a few days in the hinterland.

It was the most perilous thing he could have done.  There is neither sanctity nor holy calm in the tropic jungle, nothing of the hallowed quietude that, in northern forests, clears the mind of life’s muddle and leads the soul to God.  There lurks instead a poisonous anodyne in the heavy, scented air—­a drug that lulls the spirit to an evil repose counterfeiting the peacefulness whence alone high thoughts can spring.  In the North, Nature displays a certain restraint even in her most flamboyant moods:  the green fires of spring temper their sensuousness in chill winds,