The Sheepfold and the Common; Or, Within and Without. Vol. 1 (of 2)East, Timothy
Religion
The Sheepfold and the Common; Or, Within and Without. Vol. 1 (of 2)
East, Timothy
Christian life; Christian life -- Pictorial works
"Oh! dear, they are awful realities indeed. When I heard him, he
alluded to dear Miss Patterson, who took cold on returning from
the play, and died, you know, Sir, a few weeks afterwards? Oh! she
was a lovely creature. She was too good to live on earth. Had she
been religious, she would have been a saint. But she often used
to say that her grandpapa left his religion to her aunts, and his
fortune to his grandchildren. Mr. Ingleby, after condemning plays,
&c., as impure and sinful, made a long pause, and then proposed his
questions with so much solemnity, that my pulse began to beat with
feverish rapidity.--'Should you like,' he said, and he looked while
he said it so stern and solemn, 'to pass from the theatre to the
judgment-seat of Christ? Should you like to leave the gaieties of
this world, to associate with the awful realities of another?' There
was so much stillness in the church as he went on in this strain of
awful eloquence, and so many people were overcome by what he said,
and such a serene smile on his countenance when he began to speak
about our Saviour, that I do really think, if I had not been very
firm and decided, I should have become as religious as any of them.
It was, I assure you, very difficult to withstand his fervour."
"I hope," said Mr. Cole, "you will never go again, for evil
communications corrupt the best of hearts."
"Go again!" exclaimed Mrs. Denham, "not if she have any respect
for her own happiness, or ours. Why, to hear this about the sermon
is enough to frighten any good Christian; what must it have been
to have heard the sermon itself! One thing puzzles me when I think
about it--why do our bishops consecrate such men?"
"Oh, unluckily we have some evangelical bishops."
"A bishop evangelical! don't you consider that a great wonder, Sir?"
"I consider it a great calamity to our church."
"Exactly so; then I suppose we shall always be annoyed with these
evangelical clergy if the bishops sanction them. I hope you won't
turn evangelical."
"Not while I retain my reason. When that is gone, I may go off too."
My readers who are but superficially acquainted with the religious
habits and style of conversation which prevail in the higher walks
of life, may be induced to imagine that I have given a strong
colouring to some parts of my narrative, but I assure them that I
have not. Indeed, had I quoted the epithets and the phrases which,
I know, are sometimes employed, when a certain class of fashionable
Christians, with their anti-evangelical pastors, venture to discuss
religious subjects, and animadvert on religious people, my pages
would be too disfigured to pass through the hands of the pious
reader.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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