Sunday came, and George's friends arrived as he expected. They were early, and had time for a chat before starting out.
"Where shall we go this morning?" asked George. "There is a very good minister close by at the church, and another equally good at the chapel. My principles are unsectarian, and I do not mind where it is we go."
"Don't you think," said Dixon, "we might do ourselves more good by taking a stroll a few miles out of town, and talking out a sermon for ourselves?"
"I am inclined to the belief that nature is the best preacher," Ashton remarked. "We hear good sermons from the pulpit, it is true; but words are poor things to teach us of the Creator, in comparison with creation."
"I do not agree with you in your religious sentiments, Ashton, as you know," said George. "Creation tells us nothing about our Saviour, and, as I read the Scriptures, no man can know God, the Father and Great Creator, but through Him."
"And yet, if I remember rightly, the Saviour said that He made the world, and without Him was not anything made that was made—so that He was the Creator; and when we look from nature up to nature's God we see Him, and connecting His history with the world around us, we have in creation, as I said before, the best sermon; aye, and what the parsons call a 'gospel' sermon, too."
"I agree with you," said Dixon; "preaching is all very well in its way, and I like a good sermon; but the words of man can never excel the works of God."
"A proper sermon," replied George, "is not uttered in the words of man; they are God's words applied and expounded. Nature may speak to the senses, but the Scriptures alone speak to the heart; and that is the object of preaching. But you are my visitors, and you shall decide the point."
"Then I say a stroll," said Ashton.
"And so do I," chimed in Dixon.