Dolly Campion on her way up the
churchyard; not less gratified to hear their respective whispers.

"Well, it wasn't a make-up, then!" said Dolly, in a rather disappointed
tone.

"Dear heart! isn't she fine?" responded Fortune.

Little did Jenny Lavender think, as she passed up the aisle to her
father's pew, that the Jenny who entered that church was never to leave
it again. There was a stranger in the pulpit that day--a man of a very
different sort from the usual preacher. He was an old man, and the
style of his sermon was old-fashioned. Instead of being a learned and
closely-reasoned discourse, seasoned with scraps of Latin, or a
political essay on the events of the day, it was a sermon such as had
been more common in the beginning of the century--simple, almost
conversational, striking, and full of Gospel truth. Such a sermon Jenny
Lavender had never heard before.

The text was Genesis, chapter 32, verse 26: "I will not let Thee go,
except Thou bless me." The preacher told his hearers in a plain
fashion, without any learned disquisitions or flowery phrases, what
blessing meant; that for God to bless a man was to give him, not what he
wished, but what he really needed for his soul's welfare; that many
things which men thought blessings, were really evils, and that all
which did not help a man towards God, only hurried him faster on the
road to perdition. He told them that Christ was God's greatest
blessing, His unspeakable gift; and that he who received Him was in
truth possessed of all things. When he came near the end of his sermon,
he bent forward over the pulpit cushion, and spoke with affectionate
earnestness to his hearers.

"Now, brethren, how many here this day," he said, "are ready to speak
these words unto the Lord? How many of you earnestly desire His
blessing? What, canst thou not get so far, poor soul? Be thine hands
so weak that thou canst not hold Him? Be thy feet so feeble that thou
canst not creep thus far up the ladder at the top whereof He standeth?
Well, then, let us see if thou canst reach the step beneath--`Lord, I
most earnestly desire Thy salvation.' Or is this too far for thy foot
to stretch? Canst thou say but, `Lord, I desire Thy salvation,' however
feeble and faint thy desire be? Poor sinful soul, art thou so chained
and weak, that thou canst not come even so far? Then see if thy
trembling foot will not reach the lowest step of all: `Lord, make me to
desire Thy salvation