'
Nevertheless, when father began to speak, I was drawn to listen by a
certain pathetic earnestness in his voice. Most of father's sermons
were as unintelligible to me as if he had spoken in Choctaw. But
sometimes he preached what he was accustomed to call a 'frame sermon;'
that is, a sermon that sprung out of the deep feeling of the occasion,
and which consequently could be neither premeditated nor repeated. His
text was taken from the Gospel of John, the declaration of Jesus:
'Behold, I call you no longer servants, but friends.' His theme was
Jesus as a soul friend offered to every human being.
"Forgetting all his hair-splitting distinctions and dialectic
subtleties, he spoke in direct, simple, and tender language of the
great love of Christ and his care for the soul. He pictured Him as
patient with our errors, compassionate with our weaknesses, and
sympathetic for our sorrows. He went on to say how He was ever near
us, enlightening our ignorance, guiding our wanderings, comforting our
sorrows with a love unwearied by faults, unchilled by ingratitude,
till at last He should present us faultless before the throne of his
glory with exceeding joy.
"I sat intent and absorbed. Oh! how much I needed just such a friend,
I thought to myself. Then the awful fact came over me that I had never
had any conviction of my sins, and consequently could not come to Him.
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