ry Sunday-school boy. "Second, in short, simple, homely language."
Ruth smiled now. Dr. Cuyler was growing absurd, as if it were not the
most common thing in the world to use simple, homely language! No
Spurgeons could be manufactured in that way, she was sure. "Third,
mighty earnestness to save souls." Here was a point concerning which
Ruth knew nothing.

Dr. Cuyler's manner put tremendous force into the forceful words, and
carried conviction with them. She wondered how a really _mighty_
earnestness to save souls made a man appear? She wondered whether she
had ever seen such a one; she went rapidly over the list of her
acquaintances in the church. She smiled to herself a sarcastic,
contemptuous smile; she had met them all at parties, concerts,
festivals, and the like; she had seen them on occasions when _nothing_
seemed to possess them but to have a good time like the rest of the
world.

Like the rest of the world, Ruth reasoned and decided from her chance
meetings with the outside life of these Christians, forgetting that she
had never seen one of them in their closets before God; rather, she
knew nothing about these closets, nor the experiences learned there, and
could only reason from outside life. This being the case, what a pity
that her verdict of those lives should have called forth only that
contemptuous smile! Wandering off in this train of thought, she lost the
speaker's next point, but was called back by his solemn, ringing close.

"Put these together, melt them down with the love of Christ, and you
have a Spurgeon. God be thanked for such a piece of hand work as he!"

Another start and another retrospect. _Did_ she know any people who put
these together; who made a real, earnest, constant study of the Bible as
school girls studied their Latin grammars, and who were really eager to
save souls because they had the love of Christ in their hearts, and who
said so in plain simple language? "Does he, I wonder?" she said to
herself. "I wonder if his sermons sound like that? I should like to hear
him preach just once. Oh, dear! if he isn't running off to Moody and
Sankey. It _is_ a sermon after all!"

On the whole, Ruth was disgusted. Her brain was in a whirl; she was
being compelled to hear _sermons_ on every hand. She was sick of it.
They had been great men of whom she had heard, and she admired them all;
she wanted the secret of their power, but she didn't want it to be made
out of such commonplace material