hurston rose and announced:

"My brothers, we will sing hymn No. 14 on the paper."

Maggie looked and discovered that it was the hymn that had once moved
her so dramatically in London with the words

By all Thy sores and bloody pain
Come down and heal our sins again.

and with the last refrain:

By the blood, by the blood, by the blood of the Lamb
We beseech Thee.

Already, in spite of herself, in spite of her consciousness of the
melodrama and meretricious glitter of the scene, her heart was beating.
She was more deeply moved, even now, than she had ever been by all the
services of the Skeaton Church.

And Thurston had learnt his job by this time. Softly one of the violins
played the tune. Then Thurston said:

"The first verse of this hymn will be sung by the choir alone. The
congregation is asked to stand and then to join in the second verse.
The fourth verse will be sung by the soloist."

The audience rose. There was a hush of expectation throughout the
building. The choir, to the accompaniment of the fiddlers alone, sang
the first verse. They had been well selected and trained. Thurston
obviously spared no expense. For the second verse, the whole orchestra
combined, the drum booming through the refrain. At first the
congregation was timid, but the tune was simple and attractive. The
third verse was sung by every one, and Maggie found herself, almost
against her will, joining in. At the fourth verse there was again the
hush of expectation, then a soprano, thin and clear, accompanied again
by one violin, broke the silence.

There was no doubt that this was very moving. Men and women sat down at
the hymn's close quite visibly affected.

Thurston got up then and read a lesson from the Bible. He read from the
Revelations:

"After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the
first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me;
which said, Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be
hereafter."

"And immediately I was in the Spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in
heaven, and one sat on the throne."

"And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone:
and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an
emerald. And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and
upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white
raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold."

Thurston had wor