atiently, "for we are all waiting for you."
Johnnie Sarah stood paralyzed with amazement and seemed uncertain
whether to advance or to turn and flee. The minister's impatient
command, however, decided him, and he dropped into the nearest seat with
all speed, and gazed about him as if to discover where he was. He had
no sooner taken his seat than the door opened again, and some half-dozen
people entered. The minister stood looking at them for some moments and
then said, in a voice of resignation: "Friends, these are some of our
people from the Island, and there are some strangers with them. But
if you want to know who they are, you will just have to look at them
yourselves, for I must get on with the reading."
Needless to say, not a soul of the congregation, however consumed with
curiosity, dared to look around, and the reading of the chapter went
gravely on to the close. To say that Maimie sat in utter astonishment
during this extraordinary proceeding would give but a faint idea of her
state of mind. Even Mrs. Murray herself, who had become accustomed to
her husband's eccentricities, sat in a state of utter bewilderment, not
knowing what might happen next; nor did she feel quite safe until the
text was announced and the sermon fairly begun.
Important as were the exercises of reading, praise, and prayer, they
were only the "opening services," and merely led up to the event of the
day, which was the sermon. And it was the event, not only of the day,
but of the week. It would form the theme of conversation and afford food
for discussion in every gathering of the people until another came to
take its place. To-day it lasted a full hour and a half, and was an
extraordinary production. Calm, deliberate reasoning, flights of vivid
imagination, passionate denunciation, and fervid appeal, marked its
course. Its subject was the great doctrine of Justification by Faith,
and it contained a complete system of theology arranged with reference
to that doctrine. Ancient heresies were attacked and exposed with
completeness amounting to annihilation. Modern errors, into which our
"friends" of the different denominations had fallen, were deplored and
corrected, and all possible misapplications of the doctrine to practical
life guarded against. On the positive side the need, the ground, the
means, the method, the agent, the results, of Justification, were fully
set forth and illustrated. There were no anecdotes and no poetry.
The subj
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