open chamber of the pulpit--open not only or specially to heaven
above, but to so many of the secret chambers of the souls of the
congregation. For what a man dares not, could not if he dared, and
dared not if he could, say to another, even at the time and in the
place fittest of all, he can say thence, open-faced before the whole
congregation; and the person in need thereof may hear it without
umbrage, or the choking husk of individual application, irritating
to the rejection of what truth may lie in it for him. Would that our
pulpits were all in the power of such men as by suffering know the
human, and by obedience the divine heart! Then would the office of
instruction be no more mainly occupied by the press, but the faces
of true men would everywhere be windows for the light of the Spirit
to enter other men's souls, and the voice of their words would
follow with the forms of what truth they saw, and the power of the
Lord would speed from heart to heart. Then would men soon understand
that not the form of even soundest words availeth anything, but a
new creature.

When Wingfold was in the pulpit, then, he could speak as from the
secret to the secret; but elsewhere he felt, in regard to Helen,
like a transport-ship filled with troops, which must go sailing
around the shores of an invaded ally, in frustrate search for a
landing. Oh, to help that woman, that the light of life might go up
in her heart, and her cheek bloom again with the rose of peace! But
not a word could he speak in her presence, for he heard everything
be would have said as he thought it would sound to her, and
therefore he had no utterance. Is it an infirmity of certain kinds
of men, or a wise provision for their protection, that the brightest
forms the truth takes in their private cogitations seem to lose half
their lustre and all their grace when uttered in the presence of an