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I miss, like you, the proud tree, which rejoiced my soul and my heart, but I know that it is planted in a better garden, where Christ is the gardener." The preacher's invitation to remain with him, during his stay, in his house, Otto declined. Already this first night he wished to establish himself in his own little chamber in the house of mourning. Rosalie also would return.
It is of little use knowing the contents of well-filled shelves if we have never read the living volumes before us in the pews. Again we say, "if we only knew." Still knowledge is not the whole of the preacher's need in order that his message may contain this cheering quality. It is even more needful that he shall, himself, be one of those who abide in the comfort of God.
Josh says that for his part he don't like potatoes anyhow, and will not be comforted. In the afternoon we present ourselves at Sunday-school, and as the preacher's sons are supposed to be first-class ecclesiastical scholars, are put in the Bible-class. Here we surprise everybody by the quantity of verses we know by heart, and get many red and blue tickets for our reward.
The controversy would have been rekindled, and in all probability for what can insure the good temper and moderation of polemics? might have ended in the preacher's being transported a captive to the Monastery, had not Christie of the Clinthill observed that it was growing late, and that he, having to descend the glen, which had no good reputation, cared not greatly for travelling there after sunset.
If the windows had been opened so as to admit the fresh air from the Bras d'Or, I presume the hard-working farmers and their wives would have resented such an interference with their ordained Sunday naps, and the preacher's sermon would have seemed more musty than it appeared to be in that congenial and drowsy air.
"If they had been supported by the attack which Captain Chaudieu, the preacher's brother, was expected to make before the gate of the Bon-Hommes, they would have been completely successful," replied the Duc de Nemours. "But in consequence of the position which the Duc de Guise ordered me to take up, Captain Chaudieu was obliged to turn my flank to avoid a fight.
But, beyond all, the sermons appealed to men to go back into their own thoughts and feelings, and there challenged them; were not the preacher's words the echoes and interpreting images of their own deepest, possibly most perplexing and baffling, experience? From first to last this was his great engine and power; from first to last he boldly used it.
In beginning then, a very brief inquiry concerning these qualities, it may be assumed that in the sermon as we know it we have by far the best vehicle for the conveyance of the preacher's message. From time to time experiments with other media have been tried, but the sermon has not been superseded.
But what years and years of shortcoming and failure in private and in public life lie behind that fine word 'integrity'! as also what stumbles and what blunders behind that other fine word 'skilfulness'! But, then, how a lightest touch of a preacher's own dear-bought experience skilfully let fall brightens up an obscure scripture! How it sends a thrill through a prayer!
Gordon frowned, sat down and made some notes of the points he wished to urge. He had often wondered at the impotence of the average preacher in New York. But as he felt the forces of materialism closing about him, and their steel grip on his heart, he began to know why New York is the preacher's graveyard. He had won his great audience.
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