"And what of the other and more intimate side of your lives? Do you live
with the most ordinary standard of family and personal purity before
you? Do you spend a large portion of your lives in gambling, in the
endeavor to gain money without working for it from people less skilful
or fortunate than yourself? Do you reverence goodness and holiness when
you find them or are told of them, or do you mock and sneer? Do you
destroy your bodily health by over-indulgence in food, in wine, and in
unnatural drugs, which destroy the mind and the moral sense? Do you
ever and systematically seek the good and welfare of others, or do you
live utterly and solely for yourself, even as the beasts that perish?"
The preacher stopped in one long pause; then his voice sank a full
tone--
"Yes, all these things you do, and more, and God is not with you."
Nearly every head in the church was bent low as the flaming, scorching
words of denunciation swept over them.
Wealthy, celebrated, high in the world's good favor as they were, none
of these people had ever heard the terrible, naked truth about their
lives before. Nor was it alone the denunciatory passion of the words and
the bitter realization of the shameful truth which moved and influenced
them so deeply. The personality of the Teacher, some quality in his
voice which they had never yet heard in the voice of living man, the
all-inspiring likeness to the most sacred figure the world has ever
known, the intense vibrating quality of more than human power and
conviction--all these united to light the fires of remorse in every
heart, and to touch the soul with the cold fingers of fear.
Accustomed as most of them were to this or that piquant thrill or
sensation--for were not their lives passed in the endless quest of
stimulating excitement?--there was yet something in this occasion
utterly alien to it, and different from anything they had ever known
before.
Of what this quality consisted, of what it was composed, many of them
there would have given conflicting and contradictory answers. All would
have agreed in its presence.
Only a few, a very few, knew and recognized the truth, either with
gladness and holy awe or with shrinking and guilty dread, the Power
which enveloped them with the sense of the presence of the Holy Ghost.
There was a change in the accusing voice--
"But it is not yet too late. God's mercy is infinite, and through the
merits of His Son you may save yourselves while there is time. Kneel now
and pray silently as you have never prayed before, for I tell you that
God is here among you. An opportunity will be given to each one of you
to make reparation for the evil you have done, for the messengers of the
Lord have come to London, and wondrous things will come to pass! And now
pray, pray, pray! In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost. Amen."
With no further word the Teacher turned and quietly descended the pulpit
steps.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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