eek
when the right is smitten--all this is to him so evidently but a figure
of speech, that he does not find it very hard to satisfy conscience.
Setting these passages aside, as not to be taken in the sense of the
letter, he does not find it very difficult to dispose of others that
come nearer to the obvious duties of man to man--such, for instance, as
that in the illustration of which, by the preacher, Mr. Braxton's
self-complacency had been so much disturbed. He had never done much in
the way of feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing
the naked, or visiting the sick and in prison--never done anything of
set purpose, in fact. If people were hungry, it was mostly their own
fault, and to feed them would be to encourage idleness and vice. All
the other items in the catalogue were as easily disposed of; and so the
literal duties involved might have been set forth in the most
impassioned eloquence, Sabbath after Sabbath, without much disturbing
the fine equipose of Mr. Braxton. Alas for his peace of mind!--the
preacher of truth had gone past the dead letter, and revealed its
spirit and its life. Suddenly he felt himself removed, as it were, to
an almost impossible distance from the heaven into which, as he had
complacently flattered himself, he should enter by the door of mere
ritual observances, when the sad hour came for giving up the delightful
things of this pleasant world. No wonder that Mr. Braxton was
disturbed--no wonder that, in his first convictions touching those more
interior truths, which made visible the sandy foundations whereon he
was building his eternal hopes, he should regard the application of
doctrine as personal and even literal.

It was not so easy a thing to set aside the duty of ministering to the
hungry, sick, and naked human souls around him, thousands of whom, for
lack of spiritual nourishment, medicine and clothing, were in danger of
perishing eternally. And the preacher in dwelling upon this great duty
of all Christian men and women, had used emphatic language.

"I give you," he said, "God's judgment of the case--not my own.
'Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of these, ye did it
not unto me. And these shall go away;' where? 'To everlasting
punishment!' Who shall go thus, in the last day, from this
congregation?"

As Mr. Braxton sat alone on the evening of that Sabbath, troubled by
the new thoughts which came flowing into his mind, the full impression
of this