'Now let me go,' said Christian. 'Nay, stay,' said the
Interpreter, 'till I have showed thee a little more.' 'Sir, is it not
time for me to go?' 'Do tarry till I show thee just one thing more.'
6. 'Here have I seen things rare and profitable,
. . . Then let me be
Thankful, O good Interpreter, to thee.'
Sydney Smith, with his usual sagacity, says that the last vice of the
pulpit is to be uninteresting. Now, the Interpreter's House had this
prime virtue in it, that it was all interesting. Do not our children beg
of us on Sabbath nights to let them see the Interpreter's show once more;
it is so inexhaustibly and unfailingly interesting? It is only stupid
men and women who ever weary of it. But, 'profitable' was the one and
universal word with which all the pilgrims left the Interpreter's House.
'Rare and pleasant,' they said, and sometimes 'dreadful;' but it was
always 'profitable.' Now, how seldom do we hear our people at the church
door step down into the street saying, 'profitable'? If they said that
oftener their ministers would study profit more than they do.
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