Let nobody dodge the sure
direction of that better than lead or iron shot with which from you
the conscience is pierced and iniquity slain. Suffer not the statesman
to withdraw his policy, nor the broker his funds, nor the captain the
cause he fights for, from the sentence of divine truth on the good or
evil in all the acts of men.
The preacher, however, as he pronounces or reports that sentence, must
never forget the bond he is under in his own temper to the spirit of
impartial love. Whatever is vindictive vitiates his announcement all
the more that he cannot be rebuked for it, as he ought to be, on the
spot. Only let not the hearers mistake earnestness for vindictiveness.
If kindly and with intense serenity he communicates what he has
struggled long and hard to attain, then for their own sake, if not for
his, they should beware of visiting him either with silent distrust or
open reproach. He, just like them, must stand or fall according to his
fidelity to the oracles of God. Only, once more, let him and let
the Church comprehend that those oracles are not summed up in any
laborious expounding of verbal texts. "The letter killeth," unless
itself enlivened through the immediate Providence.
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