The Revolution in Tanner's LaneWhite, William Hale
General
The Revolution in Tanner's Lane
White, William Hale
England -- Fiction; Religious fiction
The dread of the real, obvious danger was not so horrible as a vague,
shapeless fear which haunted him. It was a coward enemy, for it seized
him when he was most tired and most depressed. What is that nameless
terror? Is it a momentary revelation of the infinite abyss which
surrounds us; from the sight of which we are mercifully protected by a
painted vapour, by an illusion that unspeakable darkness which we all of
us know to exist, but which we hypocritically deny, and determine never
to confess to one another? Here again, however, Zachariah had his
advantage over others. He had his precedent. He remembered that
quagmire in the immortal Progress into which, if even a good man falls,
he can find no bottom; he remembered that gloom so profound “that
ofttimes, when he lifted up his foot to set forward, he knew not where or
upon what he should set it next;” he remembered the flame and smoke, the
sparks and hideous noises, the things that cared not for Christian’s
sword, so that he was forced to betake himself to another weapon called
All-prayer; he remembered how that Christian “_was so confounded that he
did not know his own voice_;” he remembered the voice of a man as going
before, saying, “_Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I will fear none ill_, _for Thou art with me_.” Lastly, he remembered
that by-and-by the day broke, and Christian cried, “_He hath turned the
shadow of death into the morning_.” He remembered all this; he could
connect his trouble with the trouble of others; he could give it a place
in the dispensation of things, and could therefore lift himself above it.
He had now been in Manchester a fortnight, and his little store had
dwindled down to five shillings. It was Saturday night. On the Sunday,
as his last chance, he meant to write to Mr. Bradshaw. He went out on
the Sunday morning, and had persuaded his wife to accompany him. They
entered the first place of worship they saw. It was a Methodist chapel,
and the preacher was Arminian in the extreme. It was the first time
Zachariah had ever been present at a Methodist service. The congregation
sang with much fervour, and during the prayer, which was very long, they
broke in upon it with ejaculations of their own, such as “Hear him, O
Lord!”—“Lord have mercy on us!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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