the hour of nine
He thought of Simon the Pharisee ; he thought , too , of St. Dominic ; and of Calvin with the cry for green wood , so that Servetus might slowly burn . He thought , too , of the curse of spiritual pride -- pride that enthroned men as judges over the destiny of their fellows , and damned souls as freely and as coolly as a commander marched his forlorn hope into the yawning breach . And then , realizing that among such his lot was thrown -- realizing also the dead hand that rested on his teaching and preaching -- his heart went down into a sea of hopelessness , and he felt the chill of despair . The gong of the chapel clock announced the hour of nine , in thin , metallic beats , and looking up , he noted the swealing tapers in the candelabra over his head . In his over-wrought , nervous condition , he imagined he saw in one of the flickering , far-spent lights the waning life of Amanda Stott , and the horrible thought of eternal extinction at death laid its cold hand on the larger hope which he was struggling to keep aflame in his darkening soul . Turning his glances towards the pulpit that rose gaunt and square above the deacons ' pew , and over which hung the old sounding-board , as though to mock the voices , now for ever silent , that from time to time had been wont to reverberate from its panels , he began to wonder whether the message the Church called revelation was not , after all , as vain as ` laughter over wine ' ; and as he looked on the frowning galleries and the distant corners of the chapel , gloomy and fearsome -- the high-backed pews , peopled with shadows thrown from the waning lights -- he felt the force of the words of one of his masters : ` What shadows we are , and what shadows we pursue . ' Suddenly he was recalled to his position as the pastor of the church by the voice of old Enoch , mellow as the tones of the flute on which he so often tuned his soul in moods of sorrow and sin .