They talk about it yet, in North Estabrook, though it happened a year
ago. Nobody knew how it was that from a frail old man with a trembling
voice, which, in its first sentences, the people back of the middle of
the church could hardly hear, there came to stand before them a fiery
messenger from the skies. But such was the miracle--for it seemed no
less. The bent figure straightened, the trembling voice grew clear
and strong, the dim eyes brightened, into the withered cheeks flowed
colour--into the whole aged personality came slowly but surely back the
fires of youth. And once more in a public place Ebenezer Blake became
the mouthpiece of the Master he served.
[Illustration:
There was flesh and blood in the message he gave them,
and it was the message they needed]
Peace and good will? Oh, yes--he preached it--no doubt of that. But it
was no milk-and-water peace, no sugar-and-spice good will. There was
flesh and blood in the message he gave them, and it was the message they
needed. Even his text was not the gentle part of the Christmas prophecy,
it was the militant part-- "_And the government shall be upon His
shoulder._" They were not bidden to lie down together like lambs,
they were summoned to march together like lions--the lions of the Lord.
As William Sewall looked down into the faces of the people and watched
the changing expressions there, he felt that the strange, strong,
challenging words were going home. He saw stooping shoulders straighten
even as the preacher's had straightened; he saw heads come up, and eyes
grow light;--most of all, he saw that at last the people had forgotten
one another and were remembering--God.
Suddenly the sermon ended. As preachers of a later day have learned the
art of stopping abruptly with a striking climax, so this preacher from
an earlier generation, his message delivered, ceased to speak. He left
his hearers breathless. But after a moment's pause, during which the
silence was a thing to be felt, the voice spoke again. It no longer
rang--it sank into a low pleading, in words out of the Book upon which
the clasped old hands rested:
"_Now, therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of Thy servant and his
supplications, and cause Thy face to shine upon Thy sanctuary that is
desolate, for the Lord's sake._"