h," the singing of which Mr. Sankey,
sitting before a small harmonium, led and accompanied, the vast
congregation joining with great heartiness.

"Mr. Sankey will now sing a hymn by himself," said Mr. Moody; whereupon
there was a movement in the hall, a rustling of dresses, and a general
settling down to hear something special.

The movement was so prolonged that Mr. Moody again stood up, and begged
that every one would be "perfectly still whilst Mr. Sankey sang." There
was another pause, Mr. Sankey waiting with marked punctiliousness till
the last cougher had got over his difficulty. Presently the profound
stillness was broken by the harmonium--"melodeon" is, I believe, the
precise name of the instrument--softly sounding a bar of music. Then Mr.
Sankey suddenly and loudly broke in with the first line of the hymn,
"What are you going to do, brother?"

Mr Sankey has a fairly good voice, which he used in what is called "an
effective" manner, singing certain lines of the hymn _pianissimo_, and
giving the recurrent line, "What are you going to do, brother?" _forte_,
with a long dwelling on the monosyllable "do." When he reached the
last verse, he, after a short pause, began to play a tune well known at
these meetings, into which the congregation struck with a mighty voice
that served to bring into stronger prominence the artificial character
of the preceding performance. The words had a martial, inspiriting sound,
and as the verse rolled forth, filling the great hall with a mighty
musical noise, one could see the eyes of strong men fill with tears.

"Ho, my comrades! see the signal
Waving in the sky;
Reinforcements now appearing,
Victory is nigh!
'Hold the fort, for I am coming,'
Jesus signals still;
Wave the answer back to Heaven,
'By Thy grace we Will.'"

The subject of Mr. Moody's address was "Daniel"--whom he once,
referring to the prophet's position under King Darius, dubbed "the
Bismarck of those times," and always called "Dan'l." One might converse
for an hour with Mr. Moody without discovering from his accent that he
comes from the United States. But it is unmistakable when he preaches,
and especially in the colloquies supposed to have taken place between
characters in the Bible and elsewhere.

He began his discourse without other preface than a half apology for
selecting a subject which, it might be supposed, everybody knew