s, his voice
went out and did not return to him; but if he moved either way, he was
assailed by a Babel of clamoring echoes. There was no opportunity for
him to splurge about from side to side of the pulpit, as some do. And if
he raised his voice much, or attempted any extra flights, he was liable
to be drowned in a refluent sea of his own eloquence. And he could
hear the congregation as well as they could hear him. All the coughs,
whispers, noises, were gathered in the wooden tympanum behind him, and
poured into his ears.

But the sounding-board was an improvement, and we advanced to bolder
measures; having heard a little, we wanted to hear more. Besides, those
who sat in front began to be discontented with the melodeon. There are
depths in music which the melodeon, even when it is called a cabinet
organ, with a colored boy at the bellows, cannot sound. The melodeon was
not, originally, designed for the Gothic worship. We determined to have
an organ, and we speculated whether, by erecting it in the apse, we
could not fill up that elegant portion of the church, and compel the
preacher's voice to leave it, and go out over the pews. It would of
course do something to efface the main beauty of a Gothic church; but
something must be done, and we began a series of experiments to test the
probable effects of putting the organ and choir behind the minister. We
moved the desk to the very front of the platform, and erected behind
it a high, square board screen, like a section of tight fence round the
fair-grounds. This did help matters. The minister spoke with more ease,
and we could hear him better. If the screen had been intended to stay
there, we should have agitated the subject of painting it. But this was
only an experiment.

Our next move was to shove the screen back and mount the volunteer
singers, melodeon and all, upon the platform,--some twenty of them
crowded together behind the minister. The effect was beautiful. It
seemed as if we had taken care to select the finest-looking people in
the congregation,--much to the injury of the congregation, of course, as
seen from the platform. There are few congregations that can stand
this sort of culling, though ours can endure it as well as any; yet it
devolves upon those of us who remain the responsibility of looking as
well as we can.

The experiment was a success, so far as appearances went, but when the
screen went back, the minister's voice went back with it. We could n