A crowded gather of distinguished scientists had been listening spellbound to the masterly expositions of Michael Faraday. For an hour he had held his brilliant audience enthralled as he demonstrated the nature and properties of the magnet. He had brought his lecture to a close with an experiment so novel, so bewildering, and so triumphant, that for some time after he resumed his seat, the house rocked with enthusiastic applause.
And then the Prince of Wales… afterwards King Edward VII rose to propose a motion of congratulation. The resolution, having been duly seconded, was carried with renewed thunders of applause. Suddenly the uproar ceased and a strange silence settled over the audience.
The assembly waited for Faraday’s reply. But he did not appear. Only his most intimate friends knew what had become of him. He was an elder in a little Sandemanian church… a church that never boasted more than twenty members.
The hour at which Faraday concluded his lecture was the hour of the weeknight prayer meeting.
Michael Faraday was a British physicist and chemist, best known for his discoveries of electromagnetic induction and of the laws of electrolysis. His biggest breakthrough in electricity was his invention of the electric motor
