The
twenty or twenty-five people who composed the congregation first bowed
their heads and then sat up and looked about them. It was very quiet,
and the light down here seemed paler than the light above. The usual
bows and smiles were dispensed with, but they recognised each other.
The Lord's Prayer was read over them. As the childlike battle of voices
rose, the congregation, many of whom had only met on the staircase, felt
themselves pathetically united and well-disposed towards each other.
As if the prayer were a torch applied to fuel, a smoke seemed to rise
automatically and fill the place with the ghosts of innumerable services
on innumerable Sunday mornings at home. Susan Warrington in particular
was conscious of the sweetest sense of sisterhood, as she covered her
face with her hands and saw slips of bent backs through the chinks
between her fingers. Her emotions rose calmly and evenly, approving of
herself and of life at the same time. It was all so quiet and so good.
But having created this peaceful atmosphere Mr. Bax suddenly turned the
page and read a psalm. Though he read it with no change of voice the
mood was broken.
"Be merciful unto me, O God," he read, "for man goeth about to devour
me: he is daily fighting and troubling me. . . . They daily mistake my
words: all that they imagine is to do me evil. They hold all together
and keep themselves close.
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