"Indeed, they are intensely keen. It will be a long time before I get over the impression this fatal accident has made on me."
"You should take it as a warning."
"Well, I don't know how it is, but I never feel quite myself when taking a Sunday excursion; I feel a little qualm of conscience, even though I do not hold the Sunday in such reverence as you do. I thought some time[12] ago that I had got over these qualms, but they will come back at times in spite of me."
"I am glad to hear you say that your conscience does reprove you when you profane the Sabbath, and I hope its reproofs will be more severe than they ever have been. They may be your protection against some fatal danger."
"Then, Sir, if I do not mistake your meaning, you wish me to be frightened into the adoption of religious habits. Is this a fair specimen of your Christian charity?"
"The storm sometimes saves the vessel which might become a wreck in the calm, as we heard in the sermon last evening; and I assure you I should be highly gratified to see you agitated by a salutary feeling of dread and perplexity regarding the state of your soul, as I then should indulge a hope that you would 'flee from the wrath to come,' and take refuge in the promises of the gospel."
"Well, I must confess that Mr. Guion is one of the most eloquent preachers I ever heard. The conclusion of his sermon was truly sublime; the congregation appeared to quail under its terror—a feeling which by no means surprised me. There is, indeed, a fearful terror in the words the wrath to come; and there was almost an irresistible impressiveness in the look and tones of the preacher when urging his audience to flee from it. I felt, just before he finished, that I must take refuge in the promises of the gospel; but the internal commotion soon subsided when I found myself beyond the reach of his voice, though still I cannot forget it."
"Now, Sir, to be candid; is not the terror you felt, when listening to the sermon we heard, and the abiding recollection of it, something like an unconscious homage instinctively paid to the positive reality of the Christian faith? for we can hardly suppose that you would invest a mere fiction with such power of impression."
"Why, no; I can scarcely admit that. My idea is, that my present feelings are merely the lingering influences of early religious training, with its accompanying associations; and we all know that such influences may subsist long after we have been led to form different opinions in our maturer years."
"They live to admonish and to warn, as well as to chastise. There may be a wrath to come. This you must admit, simply because you do not know there is not; nor can you know, unless God is pleased to tell you so. Hence your scepticism needs a Divine revelation to sustain it—mere disbelief goes for nothing in settling such a question."