They take the Sabbath as
a pleasant opiate--as a kind of spiritual Godfrey's Cordial for the
soul--that they may go back to the world with renewed energy and power.
To such Mr. Hinton does not preach: with such he is no favourite. No
singer of sweet songs--no player upon pleasant instruments is he. Tall,
sickly with the work and study of a life, grey-haired, inelegant as all
book-worms and men of thought--with the exception of Sir Bulwer
Lytton--are, with a voice by no means melodious, but tremulous with
emotion as it is played upon by the soul within: such is Howard Hinton.
If you stay to listen--if you have sense enough to see the heart in that
ungainly frame and the intellect in that capacious brain--you will hear a
sermon that will repay you well. From whatever subject he is preaching
on Mr. Hinton always manages to extract something new; you are really
instructed by his sermons; your views become clearer and more enlarged;
you understand better the Christian scheme. Mr. Hinton is more than what
I have here implied. He is something more than a great reasoner or acute
divine. He has a heart, and he speaks out of it to you. He excites your
emotions as well as convinces your understanding. There is flame as well
as light in that pulpit--flame, perhaps, all the more glowing that you
did not expect to find it there. On all subjects Mr. Hinton is an
independent, an original, and a fearless preacher. On some he is
peculiar--on most he is far ahead of the denomination to which he
belongs. This is, especially, the case with regard to the strict
observance of the Sabbath. Mr. Hinton believes that it was made for man,
not man for it--a fact of which the denominations which pride themselves
on being Evangelical seem to have become utterly oblivious. Mr. Hinton
sees in Christianity a principle at variance with the observance of set
times. He sees in man's nature abundant reason why the man who does not
profess to be religious should not be chained down to a form. He sees
the man of genuine religion will so shape his life that every day shall
be a Sabbath, and be religiously observed; and that, if he be not
religious, it is worse than mockery to ask him religiously to observe a
day. It is to the credit of Mr. Hinton that he has ably and faithfully
preached this doctrine--a doctrine which, if it be much longer denied by
the clergy of this country, threatens to be attended with most disastrous
results. It is dangero