Seite:Marsh Hallig 1856.djvu/222

222THE HALLIG.

me, praise our Father who hath done so great things
for us."
  "Do not forget," replied Hold, "that hours will
come in your life, in which you will feel your own pov-
erty, although you now fancy yourself rich enough to
share with others. And then I would prefer, at least,
for messengers to the heathen, men of plain, pious
minds from their youth up, such as were the first apos-
tles ; men who, neither misguided nor bewildered from
the beginning, brought simple hearts to the Lord ; men
whose recollections of their youth would be less dark-
ened by repentance, and who would, therefore, assume
the office of evangelist from pure love, not coupled
with the idea of doing penance for the past. Their
preaching will be more simple, less studied, less out of
their own hearts, more certain to give only that which
they have received from the Lord and from his word.
  "Its object would not be so much to root out former
sin from the hearts of the converts, as to illuminate, to
sanctify, and to bless. It would not regard the heathen
world so exclusively as a field to be prepared for the
seed, but it would sow the grain in hope, and leave its
growth to the sun and dew from heaven ; and I think
that the true apostolic way, from which, however, he
departs so easily whose heart was a long time a bed of
weeds before the good seed took root."
  "O !" sighed Oswald, "you are always in the right,
after all. But it is impossible for me to return to that
dry business in which I was formerly engaged, and the
only object of which is to secure the luxuries of life ;
impossible that I should ever again feel happy in the
society of my native town."