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The sermon was dry and tiresome, old-fashioned and overflowing with "doctrine. " John Harting had never made a pretense of sympathizing with the liberality of modern dominies who relied wholly for the saving of souls upon "the message of love. " True, he had ceased openly to preach "hell fire," but doubtless he still believed in it, if not as a literal punishment for the sinful hereafter, then as the only adequate synonym of the penalty that should be meted out to the evil-doer who died unregenerate.
He had found that such preaching, instead of attracting and holding congregations, left the pews of the little old church sadly vacant; and the effort to modify his sermons had taken from them the little heart they once possessed, and made them wearisome and soporific.