As the last sands were running out in his hour-glass, he came to harbour
from this raging sea; and in a few deep resonant sentences, like those
with which he began, he pictured the peace of the ransomed soul, that
knows itself safe in the arms of God; that rejoices, even in this world,
in the Light of His Face and the ecstasy of His embrace; that dwells by
waters of comfort and lies down in the green pastures of the Heavenly
Love; while, round this little island of salvation in an ocean of terror,
the thunders of wrath sound only as the noise of surge on a far-off reef.
The effect on Isabel was very great. It was far more startling than her
visit to London; there her quiet religion had received high sanction in
the mystery of S. Paul's. But here it was the plainest Calvinism preached
with immense power. The preacher's last words of peace were no peace to
her. If it was necessary to pass those bellowing breakers of wrath to
reach the Happy Country, then she had never reached it yet; she had lived
so far in an illusion; her life had been spent in a fool's paradise,
where the light and warmth and flowers were but artificial after all; and
she knew that she had not the heart to set out again. Though she
recognised dimly the compelling power of this religion, and that it was
one which, if sincerely embraced, would make the smallest details of life
momentous with eternal weight, yet she knew that her soul could never
respond to it, and whether saved or damned that it could only cower in
miserable despair under a Deity that was so sovereign as this.
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