Page:Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since.djvu/179

 necessary, so to refine and gild truth, as to destroy its specific nature. So that there may Yet be a time, when the spirit of the gospel will be held secondary to the vehicle in which it is presented, and men will hear sermons, not for the purpose of laying conscience open to their power, but to employ the mind in criticism upon their construction. Our aged Pastor might have had the satisfaction of reflecting, that he never curtailed the copiousness of his theme, or allayed its pungency, for the accommodation of "ears polite."

"To me," she replied "his performances were ever consistent with each other, and with the holy dignity of one appointed to lead "the sacramental host of God's elect." And it has given me great pleasure, in my visits to him during his decline, to perceive, that his strenuousness about particular doctrines had become absorbed in the sublimity of the great plan of salvation. While we are ascending the hill of life, little obstructions or aids seem of great importance; but when we reach the summit, if the Sun of Glory beam there, the whole journey appears but as one path of light. His happy spirit wondered where were the obstacles that had impeded its course. They vanished, when it sat so peacefully on the threshold of the gate of Heaven."

This I have also observed, my sister, in recent conversation with him. Undoubtedly, many of those opinions, which we now defend with asperity, will appear divested of importance, when the light of another world