Theron was supposed to preside over what followed, and he did sit on the central chair in the pulpit, between the Presiding Elder and Brother Soulsby, and on the several needful occasions did rise and perfunctorily make the formal remarks required of him.  The Elder preached a short, but vigorously phrased sermon.  The Soulsbys sang three or four times—­on each occasion with familiar hymnal words set to novel, concerted music—­and then separately exhorted the assemblage.  The husband’s part seemed well done.  If his speech lacked some of the fire of the divine girdings which older Methodists recalled, it still led straight, and with kindling fervency, up to a season of power.  The wife took up the word as he sat down.  She had risen from one of the side-seats; and, speaking as she walked, she moved forward till she stood within the altar-rail, immediately under the pulpit, and from this place, facing the listening throng, she delivered her harangue.  Those who watched her words most intently got the least sense of meaning from them.  The phrases were all familiar enough—­“Jesus a very present help,” “Sprinkled by the Blood,” “Comforted by the Word,” “Sanctified by the Spirit,” “Born into the Kingdom,” and a hundred others—­but it was as in the case of her singing:  the words were old; the music was new.

What Sister Soulsby said did not matter.  The way she said it—­the splendid, searching sweep of her great eyes; the vibrating roll of her voice, now full of tears, now scornful, now boldly, jubilantly triumphant; the sympathetic swaying of her willowy figure under the stress of her eloquence—­was all wonderful.  When she had finished, and stood, flushed and panting, beneath the shadow of the pulpit, she held up a hand deprecatingly as the resounding “Amens!” and “Bless the Lords!” began to well up about her.

“You have heard us sing,” she said, smiling to apologize for her shortness of breath.  “Now we want to hear you sing!”

Her husband had risen as she spoke, and on the instant, with a far greater volume of voice than they had hitherto disclosed, the two began “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” in the old, familiar tune.  It did not need Sister Soulsby’s urgent and dramatic gesture to lift people to their feet.  The whole assemblage sprang up, and, under the guidance of these two powerful leading voices, thundered the hymn out as Octavius had never heard it before.

While its echoes were still alive, the woman began speaking again.  “Don’t sit down!” she cried.  “You would stand up if the President of the United States was going by, even if he was only going fishing.  How much more should you stand up in honor of living souls passing forward to find their Saviour!”