But, the preacher had risen in his place, and all was silence and attention.  We need scarcely seek to describe him.  His appearance was that of a very common man; and the anticipations of Colleton, as he was one of those persons apt to be taken by appearances, suffered something like rebuke.  His figure was diminutive and insignificant; his shoulders were round, and his movements excessively awkward; his face was thin and sallow, his eyes dull and inexpressive, and too small seemingly for command.  A too-frequent habit of closing them in prayer contributed, no doubt, greatly to this appearance.  A redeeming expression in the high forehead, conically rising, and the strong character exhibited in his nose, neutralized in some sort the generally-unattractive outline.  His hair, which was of a deep black, was extremely coarse, and closely cropped:  it gave to his look that general expression which associated him at once in the mind of Ralph, whose reading in those matters was fresh, with the commonwealth history of England—­with the puritans, and those diseased fanatics of the Cromwell dynasty, not omitting that profound hypocrite himself.  What, then, was the surprise of the youth, having such impressions, to hear a discourse unassuming in its dictates, mild in its requisitions, and of a style and temper the most soothing and persuasive!

The devotions commenced with a hymn, two lines of which, at a time, having been read and repeated by the preacher, furnished a guide to the congregation; the female portion of which generally united to sing, and in a style the sweetness of which was doubly effective from the utter absence of all ornament in the music.  The strains were just such as the old shepherds, out among the hills, tending their charges, might have been heard to pour forth, almost unconsciously, to that God who sometimes condescended to walk along with them.  After this was over, the preacher rose, and read, with a voice as clear as unaffected, the twenty-third psalm of David, the images of which are borrowed chiefly from the life in the wilderness, and were therefore not unsuited to the ears of those to whom it was now addressed.  Without proposing any one portion of this performance as a text or subject of commentary, and without seeking, as is quite too frequently the case with small teachers, to explain doubtful passages of little meaning and no importance, he delivered a discourse, in which he simply dilated upon and carried out, for the benefit of those about him, and with a direct reference to the case of all of them, those beautiful portraits of a good shepherd and guardian God which the production which he read furnished to his hands.  He spoke of the dependence of the creature—­instanced, as it is daily, by a thousand wants and exigencies, for which, unless by the care and under the countenance of Providence, he could never of himself provide.  He narrated the dangers of the forest—­imaging by this figure the mazes and mysteries of life—­the