The Man from Glengarry by Ralph Connor

Author:Ralph Connor [Connor, Ralph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781443445863
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2014-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

“For why? The Lord our God is good,”

rolled out the majestic notes of Old Hundred.

“What’s the matter, Mother?” whispered Hughie, who was standing up in the seat that he might look on his mother’s book.

“Nothing, darling,” said his mother, her face radiant through her tears. After long months of toil and waiting, they were actually singing praise to God in the new church.

When the professor arose, it was an eager, responsive congregation that waited for his word. The people were fully prepared for a sermon that would shake them to their souls’ depths. The younger portion shivered and shrank from the ordeal; the older and more experienced shivered and waited with not unpleasing anticipations; it did them good, that remorseless examination of their hearts’ secret depravities. To some it was a kind of satisfaction offered to conscience, after which they could more easily come to peace. With others it was an honest, heroic effort to know themselves and to right themselves with their God.

The text was disappointing. “Above all these things, put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness,” read the professor from that exquisite and touching passage which begins at the twelfth verse of the fifteenth chapter of Colossians. “Love, the bond of perfectness,” was his theme, and in simple, calm, lucid speech he dilated upon the beauty, the excellence, and the supremacy of this Christian grace. It was the most Godlike of all the virtues, for God was love; and more than zeal, more than knowledge, more than faith, it was “the mark” of the new birth.

Peter McRae was evidently keenly disappointed, and his whole bearing expressed stern disapproval. And as the professor proceeded, extolling and illustrating the supreme grace of love, Peter’s hard face grew harder than ever, and his eyes began to emit blue sparks of fire. This was no day for the preaching of smooth things. The people were there to consider and to lament their Original and Actual sin; and they expected and required to hear of the judgments of the Lord, and to be summoned to flee from the wrath to come.

Donald Ross sat with his kindly old face in a glow of delight, but with a look of perplexity on it which his furtive glances in Peter’s direction did not help to lessen. The sermon was delighting and touching him, but he was not quite sure whether this was a good sign in him or no. He set himself now and then to find fault with the sermon, but the preacher was so humble, so respectful, and above all, so earnest, that Donald Ross could not bring himself to criticize.

The application came under the third head. As a rule, the application to a Fast Day sermon was delivered in terrifying tones of thunder or in an awful whisper. But today the preacher, without raising his voice, began to force into his hearers’ hearts the message of the day.

“This is a day for self-examination,” he said, and his clear, quiet tones fell into the ears of the people with penetrating power.

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