at
always overpowered the people. They could not always explain it even to
themselves what it was that sometimes so terrified them, and, sometimes,
again, so enthralled them. They would say sometimes that their minister
was more than a mere man; that he was a prophet and a seer, and that his
Master seemed sometimes to stand and speak again in His servant. And
'seer' was not at all an inappropriate name for their minister, so far as
I can collect out of some remains of his that I have seen and some
testimonies that I have heard. There was something awful and overawing,
something seer-like and supernatural, in the pulpit of Mansoul. Sometimes
the iron chains in which the preacher climbed up into the pulpit, and in
which he both prayed and preached, struck a chill to every heart; and
sometimes the garment of salvation in which he shone carried all their
hearts captive. Some Sabbath mornings they saw it in his face and heard
it in his voice that he had been on his bed in hell all last night; and
then, next Sabbath, those who came back saw him descending into his
pulpit from his throne in heaven.

'Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-page
Foretells the nature of a tragic volume.
Thou tremblest, and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thine errand.'

If you think that I am exaggerating and magnifying the parish pulpit of
Mansoul, take this out of the parish records for yourselves. 'And now,'
you will read in one place, 'it was a day gloomy and dark, a day of
clouds and thick darkness with Mansoul. Well, when the Sabbath-day was
come he took for his text that in the prophet Jonah, "They that observe
lying vanities forsake their own mercy." And then there was such power
and authority in that sermon, and such dejection seen in the countenances
of the people that day that the like had seldom been heard or seen. The
people, when the sermon was done, were scarce able to go to their homes,
or to betake themselves to their employments the whole week after. They
were so sermon-smitten that they knew not what to do. For not only did
their preacher show to Mansoul its sin, but he did tremble before them
under the sense of his own, still crying out as he preached, Unhappy man
that I am! that I, a preacher, should have lived so senselessly and so
sottishly in my parish, and be one of the foremost in its transgressions!
With these things he also charged all the lords and gentry of Mansoul