136 FLORIDA DAYS.

or the calm night, with its soft glitter of stars
above the pines. A box serves for a pulpit,
and two flaring lamps in brackets against the
wall throw a glimmering and smoky light across
the dark faces. The worship begins by a low
crooning hymn, rising and falling like the sigh
of the wind in the tops of the pines: -
 SLawd, wishI was in heaven to-night,
 SLawd, wish't I was in heaven to-night,
 Wish't I was in heaven to-night,
 Wish 't I was in heaven to-night,
 To see thy lovely face "

This chant changes as some new voice ejacu-
lates a different form of words,-

 O pore sinner, man, Jesus wants ye yere,"
or -
 O sweet Jesus, save my soul from hell;"

and so on and on, a strange excitement rising
slowly in every face; a.low rhythmical stamp
of bare feet on the wooden floor makes itself
heard, like a far-off roll of thunder, to which
the swaying body and the wreathing arms are
an accompaniment; through all this, a wild inar-