The Methodists were second in social standing, but a wide gap separated them from the slave-holding and family aristocracy, who were Episcopalians.  The sermon was delivered by one of their most powerful proselytizers, an old man in a homespun suit, high shoulders, lean, long figure, and glittering eyes.  He was a wild kind of orator, striking fear to the soul, dipping it in the fumes of damnation, lifting it thence to the joys of heaven.  Terrible, electrical preaching!  It was the product of uncultured genius and human disappointment.  Marion sat in awe, hardly knowing whether it was impious or angelic.  In a blind exordium the old zealot commanded those who would save their souls to walk forward and kneel publicly at the altar, and make their struggle there for salvation.

The first whom Marion saw to walk up the dimly lighted aisle and kneel was Perry Whaley.  All in the church saw and knew him, and a thunderous singing broke out, in which religious and mere denominational zeal all threw their enthusiasm.

“Judge Whaley’s son—­Episcopalian—­admitted to the bar to-day—­wonderful!”

Marion heard these whispers on every hand; and as the singing ceased, and the congregation knelt to pray, Marion’s mother saw her turning very pale, and silently and unobserved led her out of the meeting-house.

It was one o’clock in the morning when Judge Whaley heard Perry enter the door.  He was preceded by the beams of a lamp, as his step came almost trippingly up the stairs.  The Judge looked up and saw the face of his demon, streaked with recent tears and shaded with dishevelled hair, but on it a look like eternal sunshine.

“Glory! glory! glory!” exclaimed the young man hoarsely.  He rushed upon his aged friend, and kissed him in an ecstacy almost violent.

“My boy!  Perry!  What is it?  You are not out of your mind?”

“No! no!  I have found my father, our father!”

“Who is it?” asked the Judge, with a rising superstition, as if this were not his orphan, but its preternatural copy; “you have found your father?  What father?”

“God!” exclaimed young Perry, his countenance like flame.  “My father is God and He is love!”

The town of Chester and the whole country had now a serious of rapid sensations.  Judge Whaley and his son were turned lunatics, and behaved like a pair of boys.  Marion Voss had broken her engagement with Perry Whaley because he insisted that he was not the Judge’s son.  Young Perry was exhorting in the Methodist church, and studying and starving himself to be a preacher.  The Methodists were wild with social and denominational triumph:  the Episcopalians were outraged, and meditated sending Perry to the lunatic asylum.  Finally, to the great joy of nervous people, the last sensation came—­Perry Whaley had left Chester to be a preacher.