The plausible and polite manner of the stranger was effectual with George.
"I don't think we can do better than go in and hear what the lecturer has to say," he said to the others. And, assent being given, they followed the stranger, and were conducted to the proffered seats.
The audience consisted principally of men, the majority of whom were young and of an inferior class, such as shopmen and mechanics. There was a large platform, with chairs upon it, but no pulpit or reading-desk. When the lecturer, accompanied by a chairman and some friends, entered, George and his companions were surprised to hear a clapping of hands and stamping of feet, similar to the plan adopted at public amusements.
"This does not seem much like a Sunday evening service," said George. "We have time to leave, if you like; or shall we stay and see it out?"
"Oh! let us stay," replied the others.
No hymn was sung, no prayer was offered at the commencement, but the lecturer, with a pocket Bible in his hands, quoted a few passages of Scripture, as follows:—
"Come now, and let us reason together,"—Isa. i. 18; "I applied mine heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and to know the reason of things,"—Eccles. vii. 25; "And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures,"—Acts xvii. 2; "Be ready alway to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you,"—1 Peter iii. 15.
The object of the lecturer was to show that no intelligent being could receive truth unless that truth commended itself to reason, because the two were never in opposition one with the other. Conscience, he said, was the soul's safeguard, and reason the safeguard of the heart and intellect. It was irrational to condemn any course of conduct which conscience approved, and it was equally irrational to believe anything that could not be understood. The Word of God might be useful in its way, but only as studied with unfettered thought. If that Word exalted reason and then taught inconsistencies and absurdities, reason must discriminate between the right and the wrong. "For example," he continued, "if that book tells me that there are three Gods, and yet those three are one, I reason by analogy and say, here are three fingers; each one has its particular office; but I cannot make these three fingers one finger, neither can I make three Gods one God."
So the lecturer continued, but he did not put his case in so many plain words as these; every argument he clothed with doubtful words, so as to make falsehood look like truth, and blasphemy like worship. He was an educated and intelligent man, gifted with that dangerous power of preaching the doctrine of devils in the guise of an angel of light, and handling deadly sophistry with as firm a grasp as if it were the sword of the Spirit.
At the conclusion of the lecture he announced his intention to speak from that platform again on the following Sunday, and invited all who were inquiring the way of truth to be present, and judge what he said, "whether it be right, or whether it be wrong."