But there
were other forces at work--tending in the same direction.
Whatever may have been the influence of the schoolmaster upon the
congregation gathered in Hope Chapel, there was one on whom his
converse, supplemented by his preaching, had taken genuine hold.
Frederick Marshal had begun to open his eyes to the fact that,
regarded as a profession, the ministry, as they called it in their
communion, was the meanest way of making a living in the whole
creation, one deserving the contempt of every man honest enough to
give honourable work, that is, work worth the money, for the money
paid him. Also he had a glimmering insight, on the other hand, into
the truth of what the dominie said--that it was the noblest of
martyrdoms to the man who, sent by God, loved the truth with his
whole soul, and was never happier than when bearing witness of
it, except, indeed, in those blessed moments when receiving it of
the Father. In consequence of this opening of his eyes the youth
recoiled with dismay from the sacrilegious mockery of which he had
been guilty in meditating the presumption of teaching holy things
of which the sole sign that he knew anything was now afforded by
this same recoil. At last he was not far from the kingdom of heaven,
though whether he was to be sent to persuade men that that kingdom
was amongst them, and must be in them, remained a question.
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