“What a fine boy he looks! You might know him for a lord! Does he stay long in the neighbourhood?”
“Only for a few weeks longer, I believe; he has a prodigious estate somewhere, I hear, and generally lives there with his uncle.”
As the speaker concluded, young Lord Fontonore passed before them, and his bright eye caught sight of Mark Dowley. Leaving the path which led to the door, he was instantly at the side of the poor boy.
“You are coming into church, I hope?” said he earnestly; then continued, without stopping for a reply, “Mr. Ewart is to preach; you must not stay outside.” Mark bowed his head, and followed into the church.
How heavenly to the weary-hearted boy sounded the music of the hymn, the many voices blended together in praise to the Saviour. God made him think of the harmony of heaven! Rude voices, unkind looks, quarrelling, falsehood, fierce temptations—all seemed to him shut out from that place, and a feeling of peace stole over his spirit, like a calm after a storm. He sat in a retired corner of the church, unnoticed and unobserved: it was as though the weary pilgrim had paused on the hot, dusty highway of life, to bathe his bruised feet in some cooling stream, and refresh himself by the wayside.
Presently Mr. Ewart ascended the pulpit with the Word of God in his hand. Mark fixed his earnest eyes upon the face of the preacher, and never removed them during the whole of the sermon. His was deep, solemn attention, such as befits a child of earth when listening to a message from Heaven.
The subject of the Christian minister’s address was the sin of God’s people in the wilderness, and the means by which mercy saved the guilty and dying. He described the scene so vividly that Mark could almost fancy that he saw Israel’s hosts encamping in the desert around the tabernacle, over which hung a pillar of cloud, denoting the Lord’s presence with his people. God had freed them from bondage, had saved them from their foes, had guided them, fed them, blessed them above all nations, and yet they rebelled and murmured against Him. Again and again they had broken His law, insulted His servant, and doubted His love; and at last the long-merited punishment came. Fiery serpents were sent into the camp, serpents whose bite was death, and the miserable sinners lay groaning and dying beneath the reptiles’ venomous fangs.