She was very glad, though, that Alec had come to hear Mr
Turnbull, who knew the right way better than anybody else, and could
show it quite as well as Evangelist in the _Pilgrim's Progress_.
Nor was she far wrong in her judgment of the height of Mr Turnbull's
star, calculated from the horizon of Glamerton. He was a good man who
ventured to think for himself--as far as that may be possible for one
upon whose spirit have converged, even before he was born, the
influences of a thousand theological ancestors.
After reading the curses on Mount Ebal, he preached an eloquent sermon
from the text:
"Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way; yet saidst thou not
'there is no hope.'"
He showed his hearers that they had all been seeking satisfaction in
their own pursuits, in the pride of their own way; that they had been
disappointed, even to weariness; and that yet, such was their
perversity, they would not acknowledge the hopelessness of the pursuit,
and turn to that God who was ready to pardon, and in whose courts a day
would give them more delight than a thousand in the tents of
wickedness. And opening his peroration by presumptuously appropriating
the words of the Saviour, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, it shall be
more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha, in that day, than for you," the
preacher concluded with a terrible denunciation of wrath upon the
sinners who had been called and would not come.
Pages:
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464