For the evening reading before prayers, he selected the twenty-first
chapter of Revelation. It was at all times pleasant to listen while
from his lips fell the words of the Bible: never did his fine voice
sound at once so sweet and full--never did his manner become so
impressive in its noble simplicity, as when he delivered the oracles
of God: and to-night that voice took a more solemn tone--that
manner a more thrilling meaning--as he sat in the midst of his
household circle (the May moon shining in through the uncurtained
window, and rendering almost unnecessary the light of the candle on
the table): as he sat there, bending over the great old Bible, and
described from its page the vision of the new heaven and the new
earth--told how God would come to dwell with men, how He would wipe
away all tears from their eyes, and promised that there should be no
more death, neither sorrow nor crying, nor any more pain, because
the former things were passed away.
The succeeding words thrilled me strangely as he spoke them:
especially as I felt, by the slight, indescribable alteration in
sound, that in uttering them, his eye had turned on me.
"He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God,
and he shall be my son. But," was slowly, distinctly read, "the
fearful, the unbelieving, &c., shall have their part in the lake
which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."
Henceforward, I knew what fate St. John feared for me.
A calm, subdued triumph, blent with a longing earnestness, marked
his enunciation of the last glorious verses of that chapter. The
reader believed his name was already written in the Lamb's book of
life, and he yearned after the hour which should admit him to the
city to which the kings of the earth bring their glory and honour;
which has no need of sun or moon to shine in it, because the glory
of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.
In the prayer following the chapter, all his energy gathered--all
his stern zeal woke: he was in deep earnest, wrestling with God,
and resolved on a conquest. He supplicated strength for the weak-
hearted; guidance for wanderers from the fold: a return, even at
the eleventh hour, for those whom the temptations of the world and
the flesh were luring from the narrow path. He asked, he urged, he
claimed the boon of a brand snatched from the burning. Earnestness
is ever deeply solemn: first, as I listened to that prayer, I
wondered at his; then, when it continued and rose, I was touched by
it, and at last awed. He felt the greatness and goodness of his
purpose so sincerely: others who heard him plead for it, could not
but feel it too.