The brethren, still in sublime ignorance of their destiny, sang fervently that fiery hymn of Charles Wesley's:
Jesus, the name high over all, In hell or earth or sky, Angels and men before him fall, And devils fear and fly.
And when they reached the last stanzas there was the ring of soldiers ready for battle in their martial voices. That some of them would die from exposure, malaria, or accident during the next year was probable. Tears came to their eyes, and they involuntarily began to grasp the hands of those who stood next to them as they approached the climax of the hymn....
Happy if with my latest breath I may but gasp His name, Preach Him to all, and cry in death, "Behold, behold the Lamb!"
Then, with suffused eyes, they resumed their seats, and the venerable Asbury, with calmness and a voice faltering with age, made them a brief address:
"General Wolfe," said the British Admiralty, "will you go and take Quebec?" "I'll do it or die," he replied. Here the bishop paused, looked round about upon them, and added, with a voice full of emotion, "He went and did both. We send you first to take the country allotted to you. We want only men who are determined to do it or die! Some of you, dear brethren, will do both. If you fall, let us hear that you fell like Methodist preachers at your post, face to the foe, and the shout of victory on your lips!"
The effect of this speech was beyond description. There were sobs, and cries of "Amen," "God grant it," "Hallelujah!" from every part of the old log church. Every man was ready for the hardest place, if he must.
With the circuit rider Eggleston undoubtedly added another type to the gallery of American fiction.
The novels of Eggleston have not the compression, the finish, the finesse of Harte's. Some of his works, notably _The Hoosier Schoolmaster_, were written at full speed with the press clattering behind the author. Often there is to the style a mawkish Sunday-school juvenile flavor. There is often a lack of art, of distinction, of constructive skill. But there are compensations even for such grave defects. There is a vividness of characterization and of description that can be compared even with that of Dickens; there is the ability to sketch a scene that clings to the memory in all its details. The trial scene in _The Graysons_ is not surpassed for vividness and narrative power in any novel of the period. And, finally, there is a realism in background and atmosphere that makes the novels real sources of history.