It was not, however, a reality to
them. Neither the future nor the past was real to them; no spiritual
existence was real; nothing, in fact, save the most stimulant
sensation. Once upon a time, a man, looking towards the celestial
city, saw "The reflection of the sun upon the city (for the city was
of pure gold), so exceeding glorious that he could not as yet with
open face behold it, save through an instrument made for that
purpose;" but Mr. Thomas Broad and his hearers needed no smoked glass
now to prevent injury to their eyes. Mr. Thomas had put on a white
neckerchief, had mounted the desk, and had spoken for three-quarters
of an hour from the text, "The carnal mind is at enmity with God."
He had received during the last three weeks his first lectures on the
"Scheme of Salvation," and his discourse was a reproduction of his
notes thereon. The wheelwright and his wife, and the six labourers
with their wives, listened as oxen might listen, wandered home along
the lanes heavy-footed like oxen, with heads towards the ground, and
went heavily to bed. The elder student who had accompanied Mr.
Thomas informed him that, on the whole, he had acquitted himself very
well, but that it would be better, perhaps, in future to be a little
simpler, and avoid what "may be called the metaphysics of
Redemption.
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