CHAPTER XVIII.
THE PERSECUTION.
On the following afternoon, Mr. Norton preached to a larger and far more attentive audience than usual. The solemn warnings he had uttered and the fearful presentiments of coming evil he had expressed on the last occasion of assembling at the Grove, had been communicated from mouth to mouth. Curiosity, and perhaps some more elevated motive, had drawn a numerous crowd of people together to hear him.
He spoke to them plainly of their sinful conduct, particularizing the vices of intemperance, profanity, gambling, and Sabbath-breaking, to which many of them were addicted. He earnestly besought them to turn from these evil ways and accept pardon for their past transgressions and mercy through Christ. He showed them the consequences of their refusal to listen to the teachings and counsels of the book of God, and, at last, depicted to them, with great vividness, the awful glories and terrors of the day of final account,
"When the Judge shall come in splendor,
Strict to mark and just to render".
As his mind dilated with the awful grandeur of the theme, his thoughts kindled to a white heat, and he flung off words that seemed to scorch and burn even the callous souls of those time-hardened transgressors. He poured upon their ears, in tones of trumpet power and fulness, echoed from the hills around, the stern threatenings of injured justice; he besought them, in low, sweet, thrilling accents, to yield themselves heart and life to the Great Judge, who will preside in the day of impartial accounts, and thus avert his wrath and be happy forever.
At the close, he threw himself for a few moments upon the rustic bench appropriated to him, covered his face with his hands and seemed in silent prayer. The people involuntarily bent their heads in sympathy and remained motionless. Then, he rose and gave them the evening benediction.
Mr. Somers, his nephew, and Adèle had been sitting under the shade of an odorous balm poplar, on the skirt of the crowd, at first watching its movements, and then drawn away from these observations, by the impressive discourse of Mr. Norton.