He may be informed of an aversion, more or less
extensive, to naming the _grave_ or _coffin_ and what it contains,
though he only puts one foot by pall or bier to plant the other in
paradise. If he turn the everlasting verities he is intrusted with to
events transpiring on the public stage, though he never sided with any
party in his life, and has no more committed himself to men than did
his Master, _some_ will be grieved at his _preaching politics_. His
head has throbbed, his heart ached, his eyes were hot and wet
once before he uttered himself; but he must suffer and weep worse
afterwards, because he went too far for one man and not far enough for
another. He is told, one day, that he is too severe on seceders, and
the next, ironically, that, with such merciful sentiments towards
them, he ought always to wear a cravat completely white. One man is
amused at his sermon, and another thinks the same is sad. He will be
asked if he cannot give a little less of one thing or more of another,
as though he were a dealer in wares or an exhibiter of curious
documents for a price, and could take an article from this or that
shelf, or a paper from any one of a hundred pigeon-holes, when, if he
be a servant of the Lord and organ of the Holy Ghost, he has no choice
and is shut up to his errand,--necessity is laid upon him, woe is unto
him if he deliver it not, but, like another Jonah, flee to Tarshish
when the Lord tells him to go to Nineveh and cry against its
wickedness; and he feels through every nerve that truth is not a
thing to be carried round as merchandise or peddled out at all to suit
particular tastes, to retain old friends or win new ones, hard as it
may go, to the anguish of his soul, to lose the good-will of those he
loves, and whose distrust is a chronic pang, though they come to love
him again all the more for what he has suffered and said.
Pages:
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194