Their conduct caused me great
uneasiness, and it was this that first awakened in me unhappy feeling
towards them.
CHAPTER VIII.
A SECOND TENDENCY. PRACTICAL PREACHING.
I had a second powerful tendency which helped to get me into trouble,
and so became an occasion of unhappy feeling, namely, a _practical_
tendency. This was bred in me. It was a family peculiarity; it ran in
the blood. My father had it. Religion with him was goodness of heart and
goodness of life; fearing God and working righteousness; loving God and
keeping His commandments. And his belief and life were one. I never knew
a more conscientious or godly man. And I never knew a man who could more
truly have uttered the words of the Psalmist: "Lord, my heart is not
haughty, nor mine eyes lofty; neither do I exercise myself in great
matters, or in things too high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted
myself as a child that is weaned of its mother; my soul is even as a
weaned child." What God had left mysterious, he was willing should
remain so; he found sufficient to meet his wants and to occupy his
thoughts in what He had clearly revealed. He never troubled either
himself or his children with those incomprehensible subjects on which
many people are so prone to speculate and dogmatize.
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