Page:Nurse and spy in the Union Army.djvu/216

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EFFECTIVE PREACHING.

her favorites, calling each by some pet name, to which they seemed to answer as a matter of course. I spent a day and a night there, and attended a meeting in the evening, which was held by a minister from the Christian Commission for the benefit of the wounded soldiers. Oh, what a sermon was that! The tender mercies of the Father, the love of the Son of God, were described ; the wailings of the lost and the raptures of the redeemed were portrayed in the most powerful and touching manner. I have never heard the sinner invited to the cross in more persuasive strains than flowed from his lips.

His countenance was pleasing, his manners courteous, and his deportment unassuming. He did not preach one of those high-toned, intellectual discourses which we so often hear, and which almost invariably fail to reach the heart. But he preached Christ with such winning simplicity, such forgetfulness of self, and with such an eager yearning after souls, that even the most depraved were melted to tears. How soul-refreshing is this simple mode of preaching! I seem to see him standing before me now, with uplifted hands, glowing cheeks and streaming eyes—and though I have forgotten much of the discourse, yet I can distinctly remember the impression which it made upon me then. It was good, humbling, purifying. He was evidently not a highly educated man, yet he proclaimed the unsearchable riches of Christ in