e."
"Why, Stella," said her mother, "I am very pleased to see and hear that
something has delighted you so much."
"Who do you think I saw, and heard preach this afternoon?" said Stella.
"Why, I suppose the minister," said her mother, which was the same as
saying, "I don't know, but want you to tell me."
"Well, mother," said Stella, "it was Penloe. I do wish you had been
there to have seen and heard him. His face, when speaking, at times
looked angelic. His eyes are so clear and bright, his voice sweet and
musical, and he is so graceful in his movement, at the same time so
simple and unassuming in his manner. He is symmetrical in his build, and
as handsome as a picture."
"Is he really all that?" said her mother, with a smile.
"Yes," said Stella, "and there is something about him that is a thousand
times more than all that; for there is an earnestness and sincerity of
purpose and a power, such as I have never seen or felt before, in all he
says and does. I don't know how to describe it, for he is so different
to any man I ever met or saw; and, as for his subject, why, it was just
grand. But I cannot help laughing when I think of the feelings of
horror, and so much mocked modesty which I saw and heard expressed by
many who were there this afternoon."
"Well, whatever could his subject have been about, to cause those
feelings?" said her mother.
"It was this mother; he took for his text, 'Suffer little children to
come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of
Heaven.'
"He said it was not his purpose this afternoon to describe in detail the
circumstances which led Jesus to utter those words, nor to enter in full
into the history of those people at that time, nor to describe the way
in which they were raised by their parents in those days, nor how
children were treated in general at the time Jesus walked on the earth,
but to dwell on the thought more particularly about how to bring the
children to Jesus now, and how to help them find the Kingdom of Heaven
within. He said the subject was such a large one that he could only
dwell for a short time on one method for bringing the children to
Jesus, and that was how to bring them up pure and make pure men and pure
women of them. For purity of life and thought was one of the first steps
in coming to Jesus, and finding the Kingdom of Heaven within.
"Penloe said such an innovation introduced into our society would be a
God-send to us all, for it
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