A second and worse consequence
was that, in his dissatisfaction with himself, he attempted to _get up_
his former excitement by preaching as if he were still under its
influences. Upon this his conscience sternly accused him of hypocrisy
and pretence, which reacted in paralysis; and the whole business became
wretched. Even his greatest admirers were compelled to acknowledge that
Mr Turnbull had lost much of his unction, and that except the Spirit
were poured down upon them from on high, their prospects were very
disheartening. For even the best men in _the Church_, as, following
apostolic example without regard to circumstance, they called each
separate community of the initiate, were worldly enough to judge of the
degree of heavenly favour shown them, not by the love they bore to the
truth and to each other, not by the purity of their collective acts and
the prevalence of a high standard of morality in the individual--poor
as even these divine favours would have been as a measure of the divine
favour--but, in a great degree, by the success which attended the
preaching of their pastor, in adding to their esoteric communion, and,
still worse, by the numbers which repaired to their court of the
Gentiles--their exoteric congregation.
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