Отрывок из книги
Margaret M. Robertson
Published by Good Press, 2019
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They were clear, they were logical, they were profound. Above all, they were pronounced by the orthodox North Gore people to be “sound.” It is true he read them, but even that did not spoil them; and it was a decided proof that these people were sincere in their admiration, and in earnest in their desire for union and “the healing of breaches” that this was the case. In old times, that is, in the time of old Mr. Grant, and old Mr. Sangster, to be a “proper minister” was in their opinion to be a “dumb dog that could not bark,” and such a one had ever been an object of compassion, not to say of contempt among them. But Mr. Maxwell’s sermons were worth reading, they said, and they waited. And so the first months were got safely over.
Safely, but, alas! not happily, for the young minister; scarcely recovered from severe illness, weak in body and desponding in mind, he had no power to accommodate himself to the circumstances toward which all the preparation and discipline of his life had been tending. Over a time of sickness and suffering he looked back to days of congenial occupation and companionship, with a regret so painful that the future seemed to grow aimless and hopeless in its presence. As men struggle in dreams with unseen enemies, so he struggled with the sense of unfitness for the work he had so joyfully chosen, and for which he had so earnestly prepared, with the fear that he had mistaken his calling, and that he might dishonour, by the imperfect fulfillment of his duty, the Master that he loved.
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