The ranting preacher, uttering huge untruths, may yet
wake vital verities in chaotic minds--convey to a heart some saving fact,
rudely wrapped in husks of lies even against God himself.
Mr. Christopher, thrown at one time into daily relations with a good
sort of man, had tried all he could to rouse him to a sense of his
higher duties and spiritual privileges, but entirely without success. A
preacher came round, whose gospel was largely composed of hell-fire and
malediction, with frequent allusion to the love of a most unlovely God,
as represented by him. This preacher woke up the man. "And then," said
Christopher, "I was able to be of service to him, and get him on. He
speedily outgrew the lies his prophet had taught him, and became a
devout Christian; while the man who had been the means of rousing him
was tried for bigamy, convicted and punished."
This Sunday Hester, in her dejection and sadness about Gartley, over
whom--not her loss of him--she mourned deeply, felt more than ever, if
not that she could not reach her people, yet how little she was able to
touch them, and there came upon her a hopelessness that was heavy,
sinking into the very roots of her life, and making existence itself
appear a dull and undesirable thing.
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