That grand
old man, then about seventy-two years of age, talked to the assembled
congregation from this text: "For we know that if our earthly house of
this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God; an house not
made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (Second Corinthians, fifth
chapter and first verse). It was all as natural as a part of himself
could be, and he was a power. Pure and dispassionate, the plea he made
rested on the ground of revealed truth. He told us of what the history
of the past furnished, and carried us clear on into the life beyond.
"The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life; as in Adam all die, so
in Christ shall all be made alive."
It seemed to me then, and still seems, that he spoke with a power that
was divine. The tide of earnest thought and feeling that carried him
with his subject out on the depth, carried also his hearers, and we were
shown the way to the port of eternal life. Oh, how he strengthened me!
His touching invocation reached, as it seemed, the very doors of heaven
and swung them wide open, and when the people joined in singing the good
old hymn, written by Sebastian Streeter, whose first verse runs as
follows:
What glorious tidings do I hear
From my Redeemer's tongue!
I can no longer silence bear,
I'll burst into a song.
I cried almost aloud for great joy. My father and mother were moved, and
when they saw my tears united their own. To our great surprise, after
the service we learned that the professor was the guest of our cousin,
Belinda Sprag, and at her house after dinner I had an opportunity to say
to him:
"Mr.
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