The meeting began quietly enough with a long extemporary prayer from the preacher that was more a confident button-holing of the Almighty, and Ishmael began to feel bored and at the same time relieved. Then the first thrill of instinctive protest ran through him as the voices of old and young arose in a hymn:
"There is a dreadful hell And everlasting pains, Where sinners do with devils dwell, In darkness, fire and chains."
Thus bellowed the strong voices of the men and the reedier tones of the women, while the clear little pipes of the children went up complacently. Ishmael was not alarmed yet, but his attention was attracted. Then Abimelech went up into the pulpit and stood there a few moments with closed eyes, communing with unseen powers before entering on the good fight. When he opened them it could be seen that in one he had a slight cast; this was wont to grow more marked with emotion, and gave at all times the disconcerting impression that he was looking every way at once. It seemed to Ishmael that that light glittering gaze was fixed on him, and he was aware of acute discomfort. Annie whispered him sharply not to fidget, and the next moment the preacher gave out his text: "For many are called, but few are chosen." With a long breath of anticipation the congregation settled itself to listen.
Of what was done and said that evening Ishmael fortunately only carried away a blurred impression, owing to the frenzy that it all threw him into. Every text in the Old Testament and the New that bore on hell-fire and the unrelenting wrath of God the preacher poured down. He impressed on his hearers that eternity went on for ever and ever, that each night's sleep in this world might be the last moment of unconsciousness the soul would know for everlasting. He painted man as being guilty from his start, only to be saved by the grace of this offended tyrant Who had made him vile because it seemed good to Him so to do. The preacher called on all present to flee from the wrath to come, from the inevitable condemnation hanging over them if they persisted in their sins; he talked of lusts and dishonesties and lies and envyings, and accused everyone of all of them. Ishmael, his heart turning cold within him, remembered how he had lied to the Parson about that evening's meeting, how he lied to his mother many times a day for the sake of ease; remembered how he and Jacka's John-Willy had pored over a snail which they had unearthed in the act of laying her eggs. There they were, still adhering to her--a cluster of little opaque white spheres, like soapy bubbles. He and John-Willy had used the occasion to try and add to their store of knowledge, and the memory of that unedifying discussion made Ishmael burn now. That time, too, when he stole his mother's Bible from her room that he might puzzle over portions of it which he had better have left unread. True, it had been John-Willy--whose household did not include a Bible and who could not read--who had started him on the course and urged him on, for as boys go, especially country-bred boys, Ishmael was singularly clean of thought by nature, and also far more ignorant than he knew, but none the less conscience accused him and him only. He knew the sin of it, because he was aware of what the Parson thought of such goings-on, and John-Willy had no such guide to right and wrong. All these crimes thronged on him now, and still the awful voice went on. The chapel grew hotter and hotter, and the flames shuddered at the wicks till to Ishmael's starting eyes the shadowy walls seemed a-quiver, and the people's faces swelled and diminished again. The groans that began to sound from all around him bewildered him so that sight and hearing became one confused sense and the place seemed dark with the groaning. Then cries began to pierce the medley of sound and vision. "Lord, save us, we perish!" shrieked a woman just behind Ishmael, while Annie rocked herself back and forth, the tears streaming down her face as she gave vent to little howls like an animal in distress.