Reads funny, doesn’t it?  Sign of weakness perhaps.  But when childish memories come back upon one torrent-like in the swell of a hymn or the scent of the hawthorn, it seems to me that the flood-gates open without you having anything to do with it.  When I was a little chap in the Lock Chapel choir, before the evil days came, that tune was my favourite; and when I heard it suddenly come welling up out of the depths of the forest, my heart just stood still for a moment, and then the tears came.  Queer idea, perhaps, to some people; but I do not know when I enjoyed myself so much as I did just then, except when a boy of sixteen home from a voyage, and strolling along the Knightsbridge Road, I “happened” into the Albert Hall.  I did not in the least know what was coming; the notices on the bills did not mean anything to me; but I paid my shilling, and went up into the gallery.  I had hardly edged myself into a corner by the refreshment-stall, when a great breaker of sound caught me, hurled me out of time, thought, and sense in one intolerable ecstasy—­“For unto us a Child is born; unto us a Son is given”—­again and again—­billows and billows of glory.  I gasped for breath, shook like one in an ague fit; the tears ran down in a continuous stream; while people stared amazed at me, thinking, I suppose, that I was another drunken sailor.  Well, I was drunk, helplessly intoxicated, but not with drink, with something Divine, untellable, which, coming upon me unprepared, simply swept me away with it into a heaven of delight, to which only tears could testify.

But I am in the bush, whimpering over the tones of “Hollingside.”  As soon as I had pulled myself together a bit, we went on again in the direction of the sound, Presently we came to a large clearing, in the middle of which stood a neat wooden, pandanus-thatched church.  There were no doors or windows to it, just a roof supported upon posts, but a wide verandah ran all round, upon the edge of which we seated ourselves; for the place was full—­full to suffocation, every soul within miles, I should think, being there.  No white man was present, but the service, which was a sort of prayer-meeting, went with a swing and go that was wonderful to see.  There was no perfunctory worship here; no one languidly enduring it because it was “the right sort of thing to show up at, you know;” but all were in earnest, terribly in earnest.  When they sang, it behoved us to get away to a little distance, for the vigour of the voices, unless mellowed by distance, made the music decidedly harsh.  Every one was dressed in European clothing—­the women in neat calico gowns; but the men, nearly all of them, in woollen shirts, pilot-coats, and trousers to match, and sea-boots!  Whew! it nearly stifled me to look at them.  The temperature was about ninety degrees in the shade, with hardly a breath of air stirring, yet those poor people, from some mistaken notion of propriety, were sweating in torrents under that Arctic rig.  However they could worship, I do not know!  At last the meeting broke up.  The men rushed out, tore off their coats, trousers, and shirts, and flung themselves panting upon the grass, mother-naked, except for a chaplet of cocoanut leaves, formed by threading them on a vine-tendril, and hanging round the waist.