had all been seeking satisfaction in
their own pursuits, in the pride of their own way; that they had been
disappointed, even to weariness; and that yet, such was their
perversity, they would not acknowledge the hopelessness of the pursuit,
and turn to that God who was ready to pardon, and in whose courts a day
would give them more delight than a thousand in the tents of
wickedness. And opening his peroration by presumptuously appropriating
the words of the Saviour, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, it shall be
more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha, in that day, than for you," the
preacher concluded with a terrible denunciation of wrath upon the
sinners who had been called and would not come. "Woe unto you, for ye
would not be warned! Woe unto you, for ye knew your Lord's will, and
yet committed things worthy of stripes! Therefore your whip shall be
one of scorpions! Woe unto you! I say; for, when the bridegroom cometh,
ye shall knock in vain at the closed door; ye shall stand without, and
listen for a brief moment to the music and dancing within--listen with
longing hearts, till the rush of coming wings overpowers the blissful
sounds, and the angels of vengeance sweep upon you, and bearing you
afar through waste regions, cast you into outer darkness, where shall
be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, to the endless ages of a
divine eternity."

With these words the preacher burst into impassioned prayer for the
souls which he saw exposed to a hell of which he himself knew not the
horrors, else he dared not have preached it; a hell the smoke of whose
torments would arise and choke the elect themselves about the throne of
God--the hell of Exhausted Mercy.

As long as the stream of eloquence flowed the eyes of the congregation
were fixed upon the preacher in breathless silence. When it ceased they
sank, and a sigh of exhaustion and relief arose. In that ugly building,
amidst that weary praying and inharmonious singing, with that blatant
tone, and, worse than all, that merciless doctrine, there was yet
_preaching_--that rare speech of a man to his fellow-men whereby in
their inmost hearts they know that he in his inmost heart believes.
There was hardly an indifferent countenance in all that wide space
beneath, in all those far-sloping galleries above. Every conscience
hung out the red or pale flag.

When Alec ventured to look up, as he sat down after the prayer, he saw
the eyes of Thomas Crann, far away in the crow