lightly look towards the
season of Christ's birth as a time of rejoicing and merry-making,
forgetting the load of iniquity which weighs you down--I call to you to
pause! Tremble, ye righteous! Quake in fearful terror, ye wrong-doers!
All joy is evil, and all things of the flesh accursed. Mourn, ye women!
Cry out and weep, ye little children! for by lust ye were begot. Yea, sin
walks abroad, and corruption liveth in the hearts of men. Boast not
thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
Repent, I command you, and scourge yourselves, for though it is true that
the Lord Christ came into the world to save sinners, still the security
you have made unto yourselves is a vain thing. Without repentance you
cannot share in the benefit of the birth of Christ. Prepare for Christmas
by much searching of heart and renunciation of the joys of the flesh, not
by seeking fresh pleasures and carousing. For truly the grass withereth
and the flower thereof passeth away!' He stood tense, one arm
outstretched; he was moved by his own incoherent eloquence. The
congregation listened spellbound; indeed, the man was an orator, and the
very unexpectedness of his strange violence held his listeners
enthralled. After a pause, during which the silence became nearly
intolerable, he continued his oration. His language had a Biblical
flavour, and the passion of his utterance seemed like holy inspiration.
Wilhelmine listened unmoved; she knew that the man laboured under an
excitement of being, which had little or nothing to do with religious
sincerity. It was merely his physical fury, dammed back from a more
natural channel, which had caused this exaltation of mind. She watched
him with a mocking smile as he poured forth a torrent of vehement
words--denunciations of all things joyful, exhortations to repentance,
and thunders of prospective vengeance on sin. Even to her the sermon
seemed a masterpiece of eloquence, and the artistic feeling in her
rejoiced in the vigorous phrases and fervid declamation, though her whole
being revolted against the hypocrite and fanatic who spoke, and she
despised the crude bigotry of the actual matter of the peroration.

His words came ever faster and in ever growing violence, till with
consummate skill he made another sudden pause; then, sinking his voice to
a tone of grave warning, he ejaculated solemnly: 'O my brethren, men of
the reformed faith, hearken unto me! Here, before the Face of God
A