' And as Dean Paget says in his profound
and powerful sermon on 'The Disasters of Shallowness': 'Yes, but there is
something else first; something else without which that inexpensive
brightness, that easy hopefulness, is apt to be a frail resourceless
growth, withering away when the sun is up and the hot winds of trial are
sweeping over it. We must open our hearts to our religion; we must have
the inward soil broken up, freely and deeply its roots must penetrate our
inner being. We must take to ourselves in silence and in sincerity its
words of judgment with its words of hope, its sternness with its
encouragement, its denunciations with its promises, its requirements,
with its offers, its absolute intolerance of sin with its inconceivable
and divine long-suffering towards sinners.' But preaching like this
would have frightened away poor Pliable. He would not have understood
it, and what he did understand of it he would have hated with all his
shallow heart.
'Where are we now?' called Pliable to his companion, as they both went
over head and ears into the Slough of Despond.
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