ratification in the repulsive vision. They were
angry, they were indignant, they were exasperated, and the more so
because they were more than half convinced of their impotence, while
wholly conscious that they had been decoyed to their destruction,
befooled and overreached by one who knew how to appeal to a greed which
his own ill-won successes and prosperities had engendered in them.

After the prayer, the discussion began. Men rose, trying their best to
achieve self-control, and to speak judiciously and judicially, but they
were hurled, one after another, into the vortex of indignation, and
cheer upon cheer shook the hall as they gave vent to the real feeling
that was uppermost in their hearts.

After the feeling of the meeting had somewhat expended itself, Mr. Snow
rose to speak. In the absence of the great shadow under which he had
walked during all his pastorate, and under the blighting influence of
which his manhood had shriveled, he was once more independent. The
sorrows and misfortunes of his people had greatly moved him. A sense of
his long humiliation shamed him. He was poor, but he was once more his
own; and he owed a duty to the mad multitude around him which he was
bound to discharge. "My friends," said he, "I am with you, for better or
for worse. You kindly permit me to share in your prosperity, and now, in
the day of your trial and adversity, I will stand by you. There has gone
out from among us an incarnate evil influence, a fact which calls for
our profound gratitude. I confess with shame that I have not only felt
it, but have shaped myself, though unconsciously, to it. It has vitiated
our charities, corrupted our morals, and invaded even the house of God.
We have worshiped the golden calf. We have bowed down to Moloch. We have
consented to live under a will that was base and cruel, in all its
motives and ends. We have been so dazzled by a great worldly success,
that we have ceased to inquire into its sources. We have done daily
obeisance to one who neither feared God nor regarded man. We have become
so pervaded with his spirit, so demoralized by his foul example, that
when he held out even a false opportunity to realize something of his
success, we made no inquisition of facts or processes, and were willing
to share with him in gains that his whole history would have taught us
were more likely to be unfairly than fairly won. I mourn for your
losses, for you can poorly afford to suffer them; but to hav