Eleven o'clock
Hurriedly and imperfectly our lay preacher conned his subject . Clearness of discrimination , grasp of thought , orderly arrangement , were out of the question . That would have been too much for a master mind , under similar circumstances . Eleven o'clock came around quickly , and painfully conscious of an obscure and confused state of mind , Mr. Adkin entered the house of God and ascended the pulpit . A little while he sat , endeavouring to collect his thoughts ; then he arose and commenced giving out a hymn . Lifting his eyes from the book , as he finished reading the first verse , he saw , directly in front of him , the man from whom he had purchased the forty bushels of corn . He was looking at him fixedly , and there was on his countenance an expression of surprise and contempt , that , bringing back , as the man 's presence did , a vivid recollection of the events of Monday , almost deprived Mr. Adkin , for a moment or two , of utterance .