"Sometimes I think thus; but oftener I ask myself, 'Of what value shall
human ties be, or their memories, in His august presence whom to look
upon is life? What room shall there be for other affections, what room
for other memories, than those of 'the Lamb that was slain'?
"Nay, my brethren," (and here he turns his eyes upon them again,) "we do
know in our hearts that many whom we have loved fondly--infants,
fathers, mothers, wives, may-be--shall never, never sit with the elect
in Paradise; and shall we remember these in heaven, going away to dwell
with the Devil and his angels? Shall we be tortured with the knowledge
that some poor babe we looked upon only for an hour is wearing out ages
of suffering? 'No,' you may say, 'for we shall be possessed in that day
of such sense of the ineffable justice of God, and of His judgments,
that all shall seem right.' Yet, my brethren, if this sense of His
supreme justice shall overrule all the old longings of our hearts, even
to the suppression of the dearest ties of earth, where they conflict
with His ordained purpose, will they not also overrule all the longings
in respect of friends who are among the elect, in such sort that the man
we counted our enemy, the man we avoided on earth, if so be he have an
inheritance in heaven, shall be met with the same yearning of the heart
as if he were our brother? Does this sound harshly, my brethren? Ah, let
us beware,--let us beware how we entertain any opinions of that future
condition of holiness and of joy promised to the elect, which are
dependent upon these gross attachments of earth, which are colored by
our short-sighted views, which are not in every iota accordant with the
universal love of Him who is our Master!"
"This man lives above the world," said the people; and if some of them
did not give very cordial assent to these latter views, they smothered
their dissent by a lofty expression of admiration; they felt it a duty
to give them open acceptance, to venerate the speaker the more by
reason of their utterance. And yet their limited acceptance diffused a
certain chill, very likely, over their religious meditations. But it was
a chill which unfortunately they counted it good to entertain,--a rigor
of faith that must needs be borne. It is doubtful, indeed, if they did
not make a merit of their placid intellectual admission of such beliefs
as most violated the natural sensibilities of the heart. They were so
sure that affectionate instincts were by nature wrong in their
tendencies, so eager to cumulate evidences of the original depravity,
that, when their parson propounded a theory that gave a shock to their
natural affections, they submitted with a kind of heroic pride, however
much their hearts might make silent protest, and the grounds of such a
protest they felt a cringing unwillingness to investigate. There was a
determined shackling of all the passional nature. What wonder that
religion took a harsh aspect? As if intellectual adhesion to theological
formulas were to pave our way to a knowledge of the Infinite!--as if our
sensibilities were to be outraged in the march to Heaven!--as if all the
emotional nature were to be clipped away by the shears of the doctors,
leaving only the metaphysic ghost of a soul to enter upon the joys of
Paradise!
Within eight months after his loss, Mr. Johns thought of Rachel only as
a gift that God had bestowed to try him, and had taken away to work in
him a humiliation of the heart. More severely than ever he wrestled with
the dogmas of his chosen divines, harnessed them to his purposes as
preacher, and wrought on with a zeal that knew no abatement and no rest.
In the spring of 1825 Mr. Johns was invited by Governor Wolcott to
preach the Election Sermon before the Legislature convened at Hartford:
an honorable duty, and one which he was abundantly competent to fulfil.
The "Hartford Courant" of that date said,--"A large auditory was
collected last week to listen to the Election Sermon by Mr. Johns,
minister of Ashfield. It was a sound, orthodox, and interesting
discourse, and won the undivided attention of all the listeners. We have
not recently listened to a sermon more able or eloquent."
In that day even country editors were church-goers and God-fearing men.