ged, callously winked at. The public conscience could
hardly be said to exist, so indurated was it, so moribund through lack of
stimulation and through neglect. Yet such wickedness, sooner or later,
must call down the vengeance of an offended God. It would be taken upon
these lawbreakers. Here or hereafter these evil-livers would receive the
chastisement their deeds invited and deserved. Let no man deceive
himself. God is just. He is also very terrible in judgment. Hell yawns
for the impenitent.

Breathless, he paused; and a subdued sigh, an instinctive shuffling of
feet ran through the assembly.--Yet these were but generalities after
all, often heard before, when you came to think, though seldom so
forcibly put. Every man made liberal gift of such denunciations to his
neighbours, rather than applied their lesson to himself. But Reginald
Sawyer was merely gathering energy, gathering courage for more detailed
assault. He felt nervous to the verge of collapse--a new and really
horrible experience. His head was hot, his feet cold. The temptation
simply and crudely to give in, bundle down the pulpit stairs and bolt,
was contemptibly great. His eyesight played tricks on him. Below there,
in the body of the church, the rows of faces ran together into irregular
pink blots spread meaninglessly above the brown of the oaken pews, the
brown, drab, and black, too, of their owners' Sunday best. Here and
there a child's light frock or white hat intruded upon the prevailing
neutral tints; as did, in a startling manner, Damaris Verity's
russet-red plume and suit.

Time and again, since he began his sermon, had that dash of rich colour
drawn his reluctant attention. He recoiled from, oddly dreaded it--now
more than ever, since to him it rather mercilessly focussed the subject
and impending climax of his denunciatory address.

The pause began to affect the waiting congregation, which stirred
uneasily. Some one coughed. And Sawyer was a sufficiently practised
speaker to know that, once you lose touch with an audience, it is next to
impossible successfully to regain your ascendency over it. Unless he was
prepared to accept ignominious defeat he must brace himself, or it would
be too late. He abominated defeat. Therefore, summoning all his native
combativeness, he took his own fear by the throat, straightened his
manuscript upon the desk, and vehemently broke forth into speech.

--Did his hearers deny or doubt the truth of his assertions