Something like this is what I said to him standing before him with my head on his breast, wiping the tears from my eyes. Really a spiritually sick preacher is about the most depressing thing a woman can have in the house. And when I looked at William, pale, hollow-eyed, with his mouth puckered into a penitential angle I longed to lay Horace Pendleton across my knees and give him what he deserved for disturbing a better man's peace.
About the middle of Saturday afternoon, however, I knew that his clouds were breaking. I heard him in his study singing:
"How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent word."
I Heard Him in His Study Singing.
Later on, at bed-time, he chose a cheerful psalm to read and I heard the happy rustling of his wings in the prayer he made.
The next evening had been chosen for the initial service of the protracted meeting and I remember his text:
"I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse that I may win Christ and be found in Him."
I remember it because I remember William so well that evening. He fitted into it as if it was his home. The great words seemed to belong to him. They were his experience literally. They had the authority of another simple, faithful, brave life behind them besides that of St. Paul. And the people who listened knew it. If William had made a great name and fame for himself out of preaching, if he had earned fancy salaries as the pastor in rich churches it would have been different. I don't know, of course, but it seems to me in that case they might have clanged a little like sounding brass and tinkling cymbals.