him into a trance like that which overtook Saul of Tarsus, and not unlike an epileptic fit Abimelech himself had had in childhood.  Since the trance he was a changed man; his passion for souls was now as great as his passion for pleasure had been before, and he had a name for working himself and his congregations up to a higher pitch than any one who had been on that circuit for years past.  It was known to be a terrible thing to see Abimelech wrestling with the Lord.

The meeting began quietly enough with a long extemporary prayer from the preacher that was more a confident button-holing of the Almighty, and Ishmael began to feel bored and at the same time relieved.  Then the first thrill of instinctive protest ran through him as the voices of old and young arose in a hymn: 

  “There is a dreadful hell
    And everlasting pains,
  Where sinners do with devils dwell,
    In darkness, fire and chains.”

Thus bellowed the strong voices of the men and the reedier tones of the women, while the clear little pipes of the children went up complacently.  Ishmael was not alarmed yet, but his attention was attracted.  Then Abimelech went up into the pulpit and stood there a few moments with closed eyes, communing with unseen powers before entering on the good fight.  When he opened them it could be seen that in one he had a slight cast; this was wont to grow more marked with emotion, and gave at all times the disconcerting impression that he was looking every way at once.  It seemed to Ishmael that that light glittering gaze was fixed on him, and he was aware of acute discomfort.  Annie whispered him sharply not to fidget, and the next moment the preacher gave out his text:  “For many are called, but few are chosen.”  With a long breath of anticipation the congregation settled itself to listen.

Of what was done and said that evening Ishmael fortunately only carried away a blurred impression, owing to the frenzy that it all threw him into.  Every text in the Old Testament and the New that bore on hell-fire and the unrelenting wrath of God the preacher poured down.  He impressed on his hearers that eternity went on for ever and ever, that each night’s sleep in this world might be the last moment of unconsciousness the soul would know for everlasting.  He painted man as being guilty from his start, only to be saved by the grace of this offended tyrant Who had made him vile because it seemed good to Him so to do.  The preacher called on all present to flee from the wrath to come, from the inevitable condemnation hanging over them if they persisted in their sins; he talked of lusts and dishonesties and lies and envyings, and accused everyone of all of them.  Ishmael, his heart turning cold within him, remembered how he had lied to the Parson about that evening’s meeting, how he lied to his mother many times a day for the sake of ease; remembered how he and Jacka’s John-Willy had pored over a snail which they had unearthed