'I don't know. I tried last night, and I could not. I have never read the book since I wrote Greek at school.'
'Netta begged you to read it.'
'What is that to you, Rowland Prothero? Who put you over me as judge and counsellor?'
'Netta. As spiritual counsellor, at least; and in her name, since you will not let me appeal to you in a Higher name, I command you to listen to me.'
Rowland saw that he had gained an advantage by appealing to Netta, and that Howel checked the irony that was on his tongue, out of reverence for her name. At once he spoke as an ambassador in that Higher name he had feared to use before.
Rowland had had ten years' experience of men as bad and worse than Howel, and had learnt how to speak to them, and to seize the mood of the listener. He knew Howel well; and he, therefore, used the strong and powerful language of the Bible, as the priests, prophets, and apostles used it—as the word of God to man. Not diluted by their own reflections, but in its bare and grand simplicity. He had not made the Bible his study in vain. He knew how to bring it to the heart of men with a power that none 'could gainsay or resist,' Even Howel, sceptic, scoffer as he was, listened in spite of himself.
Rowland was a humbler man than he had been, when he used, years before, to argue with Howel, and endeavour to convert him to the truth. He was equally right in his views then, but he gave them forth more dogmatically, and allowed self to peep in; now self was wholly swallowed up in the Word itself; and so Howel gave heed as to God, and not to man.
He laid bare Howel's heart to himself, for the first time that it had ever been so exposed, and then showed him the denunciations of the law against sin. He did not spare him. He knew that the only way to save such a man was by bringing him to know himself first, and then to '' preach repentance and remission of sin.'
In his energy and longing to rescue him from destruction, he stood before him as one sent to tear up his unbelief by the roots not to dally with it.
'Flee from the wrath to come,' might have been the text of his discourse, as it was that of the Baptist.