“Yes, Lord! come in!”
Leaping to his feet, and almost throwing Lucy down in his excitement, he exclaimed,—
“He is in! Glory be to God! Jesus is my Saviour! Mine!” and so, like the lame man, he, too, went in through the Beautiful gate of the temple “walking and leaping and praising God!”
“Let me go and tell Sally!” he shouted, and running out of the malt-kiln, he went to tell his wife the sweetest news she had heard from him, poor woman, since, more than thirty years ago, she had stood by his side at the marriage altar in Nestleton Church. The good woman could but weep and sob in voiceless gratitude, as he cast himself at her feet and said,—
“Sally, my lass, the Lord has forgiven me, and so must you!”
Can we doubt that all the weary trials of the years were blotted out in that delightful moment, and that Sarah Morris knew she held again to her heart the loving husband of her youth!
No grander and more triumphant issue ever attended the preached Word than that which, that day, crowned the labours of Nathan Blyth, the local preacher. No prelatic hands had ever been laid upon his head; no solemn ordination vows had ever set him apart for the high and holy calling; no clerical training or episcopal degree had ever given him conventional status as a minister of Christ; but God had sent him, his Church had called him, the love of Christ sustained him, and neither Paul nor Peter had a higher warrant for the message they proclaimed.
There is a lamentable tendency in these days among the Methodist people to look askance at the local preachers. In many places they are unacceptable in town and city pulpits; they are relegated to small and unimportant spheres of labour. The natural consequence is a marked indisposition on the part of young and capable men to enter the local ranks, and an outcry on the part of superintendent ministers that appointments are difficult to supply. Let Methodism beware! Let her be careful how she trifles with this agency, so rife with power and blessing. The enrolment of this glorious army was one of Wesley’s grandest inspirations, and in the day when her local preachers fail her, Methodism will be as weak as Samson was when his locks were shorn.
