The preacher dealt with the evil faithfully. He told his hearers that the common words repeated continually and often thoughtlessly, 'Our Lord Jesus Christ,' contained in themselves the very essence of God's glorious salvation. 'Jesus,' Saviour—He whose precious blood was shed to take away the sin of the world, and who takes away our sins for ever, if only we believe in Him: 'Christ,' the Divine title, whose signification gave value inconceivable to the sacrifice on Calvary; the Anointed One, the Prince of the kings of the earth; 'Our Lord,' our Master—the appropriation clause which makes Him and all the blessings of His gospel truly ours for ever, by faith in His name. In simpler words than are written here it was told; and the grand old story of peace, the good news of all the ages, that which has gladdened the hearts of unnumbered millions with the gladness which death does not extinguish, but only brighten into celestial glory—how God can be 'just, and yet the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus;' how there is no preparation needed for the reception of this vast boon of pardon, but simply the prerequisite of being a sinner and needing a Saviour; how all present might there, that hour, become forgiven souls, children of the royal family of heaven, heirs of God, and joint heirs of Christ, by means no more laborious than believing on Jesus as the Pardoner, coming to Him in prayer for His great gift of forgiveness, and taking it, being sure of it from His hands, as a beggar takes alms for no deservings of his own. The preacher spoke all this with soul-felt earnestness; it was the message of his life.
Even when the motley congregation drifted away down the creaking narrow stairs and into the open sunny air, where their motley vehicles stood among the stumps waiting, they could not at once shake off the impression of those earnest words. In amidst their talk of fall wheat, and burning fallow, and logging-bees, would glide thoughts from that sermon, arresting the worldliness with presentations of a mightier reality still; with suggestions of something which perhaps indeed was of deeper and more vital interest than what to eat, or what to drink, or wherewithal to be clothed.
Plenty of invitation had the pastor as to his further progress. Few settlers but would have deemed it an honour to have his shanty turned for the nonce into a church. Many there were accustomed to the means of grace weekly at home, who pined unavailingly for the same blessings in the bush. Ah, our English Sabbaths, how should we thank God for them!
Robert plucked up heart, and asked two or three seriously disposed young men to meet him every Sunday afternoon in the cottage of Jacques Dubois, for the purpose of reading the Bible together. Linda's plan of a Scripture class for girls was rather slower of realization, owing partly to a certain timidity, not unnatural in a gently nurtured girl, which made her shrink from encountering the quick-witted half-republican, and wholly insubordinate young ladies of the 'Corner.'
CHAPTER XXXII.
HOW THE CAPTAIN CLEARED HIS BUSH.
he next great event in our settlers' history was their first logging-bee, preparatory to the planting of fall wheat. The ladies had been quite apprehensive of the scene, for Robert and Arthur could give no pleasant accounts of the roysterings and revelry which generally distinguished these gatherings. But they hoped, by limiting the amount of liquor furnished to sufficient for refreshment, though not sufficient for intoxication, that they could in a measure control the evil, as at their raising-bee four months previously.