a saint. As he passed to the reading-desk his clothes brushed
Holden, who shrunk from the touch. The Solitary looked up, but as if
what he saw was displeasing, he averted his face and shut his eyes.

The first thing done by Davenport on reaching the desk, and casting a
furtive glance around, was to draw an East India silk handkerchief out
of his pocket, and having noticed a spittoon by his side, to blow his
nose sonorously. He then cleared his throat two or three times, and
commenced reading.

It happened, singularly enough, that the subject was prophecy,
considered as evidence of the divine inspiration of the Scriptures.
The writer, after referring to the fulfillment of many prophecies
contained in the Old Testament, came to those in the New, and amongst
others he spoke of that in which Christ alludes to the destruction of
Jerusalem. He said that even in the times of the Apostles, there were
persons who, by putting too literal a construction upon the words,
were misled into believing that the end of the world was at hand, and
that there had never been a time when there were not victims to the
same delusion.

It was impossible, with reference to the condition of Holden's
mind, to have selected either a topic or reader more unsuitable. The
aversion he had manifested at first increased every moment. It was one
of those antipathies as unquestionable as they are unaccountable. It
at first exhibited itself in restlessness, and an inability to remain
quiet, and afterwards in half-suppressed groans and sighs. If he
opened his eyes and looked at the reader, he saw a devilish figure,
with a malignant leer glaring at him; if he shut them to exclude the
disagreeable image it was converted into a thousand smaller figures,
dancing up and down like motes in a distempered vision, all wearing
that intolerable grin, while the whole time a hissing sound, as if it
came from a snake, whispered in his ears temptations to some deadly
sin. It was a trial the shattered nerves of the enthusiast were
ill qualified to bear, and, finally, a torture beyond his powers
of endurance. The very force of the reasons urged by the writer
distressed him more and more. They seemed to his disordered
imagination the subtle enticements of an evil spirit to lure him
from the truth, and Davenport an emissary of Satan, if not the
arch-deceiver himself. No adequate answers to doctrines which he was
persuaded were false presented themselves to his mind, and this