In League with Israel: A Tale of the Chattanooga ConferenceJohnston, Annie F. (Annie Fellows)
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In League with Israel: A Tale of the Chattanooga Conference
Johnston, Annie F. (Annie Fellows)
Epworth League (U.S.) -- Fiction
At the close of the hymn some one moved over, and made room for David on
one of the benches. Lessing pushed farther to the front. David listened
to all that was said with a sort of pitying tolerance, until the sermon
began. The bishop's opening words caught his attention, and echoed in
his memory for months afterward.
"Paul knew Christ as he had studied him, and as he appeared to him when
he did not believe in him--when he despised him. Then he also knew
Christ after his surrender to him; after Christ had entered into his
life, and changed the character of his being; after new meanings of life
and destiny filled his horizon, after the Divine tenderness filled to
completeness his nature; then was he in possession of a knowledge of
Christ, of an experience of his presence and of his love that was a
benediction to him, and has through the centuries since that hour been a
blessing to men wherever the gospel has been preached.
"It is such a man speaking in this text. A man with a singularly strong
mind, well disciplined, with great will-power; a man with a great
ancestry; a man with as mighty a soul as ever tabernacled in flesh and
blood. He proclaimed everywhere that, if need be, he was ready to die
for the principles out of which had come to him a new life, and which
had brought to his heart experiences so rich and so overwhelming in
happiness, that he was led to do and undertake what he knew would lead
at the last to a martyr's death and crown. Why? Hear him: 'For the love
of Christ constraineth us.'"
There was a testimony service following the sermon. As David watched the
hundreds rising to declare their faith, he wondered why they should thus
voluntarily come forward as witnesses. Then the text seemed to repeat
itself in answer, "For the love of Christ constraineth us!"
He dreamed of Lessing and Paul all night. He was glad when the
conference was at an end; when the decorations were taken down from the
streets, and the last car-load of irrepressible enthusiasts went singing
out of the city.
Albert Herrick went to the seashore that week. David proposed taking
Marta home with him; but her objections were so heartily re-enforced by
the whole family that he quietly dropped the subject, and went back to
Rabbi Barthold alone.
FOOTNOTE:
[A] Archdeacon Farrar.
CHAPTER V.
"TRUST."
"Alas! we can not draw habitual breath in the thin air
of life's supremer heights. We can not make each meal
a sacrament."--Lowell.
IT had seemed to Bethany, in the experience of that sunrise on Lookout
Mountain, she could never feel despondent again; but away from the
uplifting influences of the place, back among the painful memories of
the old home, she fought as hard a fight with her returning doubts as
ever Christian did in his Valley of Humiliation.
For a week since her return the weather had been intensely warm. It made
Jack irritable, and sapped her own strength.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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