As a ruddy, vigorous,
out-of-door person, with the dust of life upon him, I felt
distinctly out of place.
I could pick out easily the Deacon, the Old Lady Who Brought
Flowers, the President of the Sewing Circle, and, above all, the
Chief Pharisee, sitting in his high place. The Chief
Pharisee--his name I learned was Nash, Mr. J. H. Nash (I did not
know then that I was soon to make his acquaintance)--the Chief
Pharisee looked as hard as nails, a middle-aged man with stiff
chin-whiskers, small round, sharp eyes, and a pugnacious jaw.
"That man," said I to myself, "runs this church," and instantly I
found myself looking upon him as a sort of personification of the
troubles I had seen in the minister's eyes.
I shall not attempt to describe the service in detail. There was
a discouraging droop and quaver in the singing, and the
mournful-looking deacon who passed the collection-plate seemed
inured to disappointment. The prayer had in it a note of
despairing appeal which fell like a cold hand upon one's living
soul. It gave one the impression that this was indeed a
miserable, dark, despairing world, which deserved to be
wrathfully destroyed, and that this miserable world was full of
equally miserable, broken, sinful, sickly people.
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