THE TRIAL SERMONS ON BULL-SKIN
THE TRIAL SERMONS ON BULL-SKIN
The congregation on Bull-Skin Creek was without a pastor. You will probably say that this was a deficiency easily remedied among a people who possess so much theological material. But you will instantly perceive how different a matter it was, when you learn that the last shepherd who had guided the flock at Bull-skin had left that community under a cloud. There were, of course, those who held with the departed minister, as well as those who were against him; and so two parties arose in the church, each contending for supremacy. Each party refused to endorse any measure or support any candidate suggested by the other; and as neither was strong enough to run the church alone, they were in a state of inactive equipoise very gratifying to that individual who is supposed to take delight in the discomfort of the righteous.
It was in this complicated state of affairs that Brother Hezekiah Sneedon, who was the representative of one of the candidates for the vacant pastorate, conceived and proposed a way out of the difficulty. Brother Sneedon’s proposition was favourably acted upon by the whole congregation, because it held out the promise of victory to each party. It was, in effect, as follows:
Each faction—it had come to be openly recognised that there were two factions—should name its candidate, and then they should be invited to preach, on successive Sundays, trial sermons before the whole congregation, the preacher making the better impression to be called as pastor.