The spring of 1873 brought me knowledge of a power that was to mould much of my future life.  I delivered my first lecture, but delivered it to rows of empty pews in Sibsey Church.  A queer whim took me that I would like to know how “it felt” to preach, and vague fancies stirred in me that I could speak if I had the chance.  I saw no platform in the distance, nor had any idea of possible speaking in the future dawned upon me.  But the longing to find outlet in words came upon me, and I felt as though I had something to say and was able to say it.  So locked alone in the great, silent church, whither I had gone to practise some organ exercises, I ascended the pulpit steps and delivered my first lecture on the Inspiration of the Bible.  I shall never forget the feeling of power and delight—­but especially of power—­that came upon me as I sent my voice ringing down the aisles, and the passion in me broke into balanced sentences and never paused for musical cadence or for rhythmical expression.  All I wanted then was to see the church full of upturned faces, alive with throbbing sympathy, instead of the dreary emptiness of silent pews.  And as though in a dream the solitude was peopled, and I saw the listening faces and the eager eyes, and as the sentences flowed unbidden from my lips and my own tones echoed back to me from the pillars of the ancient church, I knew of a verity that the gift of speech was mine, and that if ever—­and then it seemed so impossible!—­if ever the chance came to me of public work, this power of melodious utterance should at least win hearing for any message I had to bring.

But the knowledge remained a secret all to my own self for many a long month, for I quickly felt ashamed of that foolish speechifying in an empty church; but, foolish as it was, I note it here, as it was the first effort of that expression in spoken words which later became to me one of the deepest delights of life.  And, indeed, none can know, save they who have felt it, what joy there is in the full rush of language that moves and sways; to feel a crowd respond to the lightest touch; to see the faces brighten or darken at your bidding; to know that the sources of human emotion and human passion gush forth at the word of the speaker as the stream from the riven rock; to feel that the thought which thrills through a thousand hearers has its impulse from you, and throbs back to you the fuller from a thousand heart-beats.  Is there any emotional joy in life more brilliant than this, fuller of passionate triumph, and of the very essence of intellectual delight?

In 1873 my marriage tie was broken.  I took no new step, but my absence from the Communion led to some gossip, and a relative of Mr. Besant pressed on him highly-coloured views of the social and professional dangers which would accrue if my heresy became known.  My health, never really restored since the autumn of 1871, grew worse and worse, serious heart trouble having arisen from the constant strain under which I lived.  At last, in July or August, 1873, the crisis came.  I was told that I must conform to the outward observances of the Church, and attend the Communion; I refused.  Then came the distinct alternative; conformity or exclusion from home—­in other words, hypocrisy or expulsion.  I chose the latter.