My lifted eye, without a tear,
The gathering storm shall see;
My steadfast heart shall know no fear,
That heart will rest on Thee!"
"There!" said Charley, "there is more religion in that hymn than in all the fustian we have heard to-day; sermons, prayers and exhortations. Humbug in worldly concerns is despicable; in the church, it is unbearable."
"Consider, Charley, that hundred of pious people believe in the practices you condemn. Some of the best Christians I know were converted at these noisy revivals," said Carry.
"It would be miraculous if there were not a grain or two of wheat in this pile of chaff. I never attend one that I am not the worse for it. It is a regular annealing furnace; when the heat subsides you can neither soften or bend the heart again—the iron is steel. What does Miss Ida say?"
"That sin is no more hateful, or religion more alluring, for this Sabbath's lessons; still, I acquiesce in Carry's belief, that although mistaken in their zeal, these seeming fanatics are sincere."
"You applaud enthusiasm upon other subjects, why not in religion?" asked Lynn, "if any thing, it is everything. If I could believe that, when the stormy sea of life is passed, heaven—an eternal noon-tide of love and blessedness would be mine—a lifetime would be too short, mortal language too feeble to express my transport. There is a void in the soul which nought but this can satisfy. Life is fresh to us now; but from the time of Solomon to the present, the worlding has nauseated at the polluted spring, saying, 'For all his days are sorrow, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night.' I envy—not carp at the joys of those whose faith, piercing through the fogs of this lower earth, reads the sure promise—'It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.'"
"You do homage to the beauty of the Faith, by whomsoever professed. I note its practical effects; judge of its genuineness by its workings. For example, the Old Harry awoke mightily within me, in intermission, to see Dick Rogers preaching to Carry, threatening her with perdition—she, who never in her life, committed a tenth of the sin he is guilty of every day. He has been drunk three times in the last month; he is a walking demijohn; his hypocrisy a shame to his grey hairs. And James Mather—he would sell his soul for a fourpence, and call it clear gain. Sooner than lose a crop, he forces his negroes to work on Sunday—can't trust the God of harvest, even upon His own day. The poor hands are driven on week-days as no decent man would do a mule;—he let his widowed sister go to the poor-house, and offered to lend John five thousand dollars, the next week at eight per cent. I have known him since I was a shaver, and never had a word from him upon the 'one thing needful,' except at church. And he was in the altar, this morning, shouting as though the Lord were deaf!"
"Charley! Charley!"
"Facts are obstinate things, Carry. Next to being hypocritical ourselves, is winking at it in others. The church keeps these men in her bosom; she must not complain, if she shares in the odium they merit. They are emphatically sounding brass."