The Preaching
- It's "about a quarter to seven," and there's more commotion than usual in Hayslope (2.1). By now, that elderly horseman is done staring at Adam and arrives in the center of the village.
- He stops near the town inn and asks the innkeeper, Mr. Casson, what the hullabaloo is all about.
- Mr. Casson informs the horseman, "It's a Methodis' preaching, sir; it's been gev hout as a young woman's a-going to preach on the Green" (2.5).
- The elderly horseman is still looking around in admiration. (Now it's the landscape that impresses him.) Soon, however, he notices that a considerable group of the townspeople have gathered to hear the woman preacher.
- And what a group they are. An old man named Father Taft, the blacksmith Chad Cranage, the shoemaker Joshua Rann, Wiry Ben (again), and other characters of little or no importance to the rest of the novel.
- Now the woman preacher appears. To the great surprise of the elderly traveler—who "had felt sure that her face would be mantled with the smile of conscious saintship, or else charged with denunciatory bitterness"—she is a kind, confident, very pretty, thoroughly normal woman (2.31). Yeah, normal. What were you expecting?
- Then the preacher, Dinah Morris, begins to speak. After her opening blessing, Dinah tells the story of Mr. Wesley, an old man who "spent his life in doing what our blessed Lord did—preaching the Gospel to the poor" (2.39).
- Turns out Mr. Wesley had was one of Dinah's own inspirations. But bear in mind: Preaching "the Gospel to the poor" can be harsh business. In no time at all, Dinah goes from praising God's power (2.40) to calling her listeners a bunch of "Lost!—Sinners!" (2.48).
- One of those sinners, er, listeners is Bessy Cranage, a vain young woman. In the course of her speech on sin, Dinah directs many of her remarks at Bessy. Finally, overcome with "a great terror," Bessy pulls off her showy new earrings (ouch!) and throws them on the ground.
- But that's no way to end a sermon. Dinah mellows down for the home stretch and reassures the people of Hayslope that God's love "is without end" (2.62). And with that, the commotion is over, and the old horseman leaves.