Here Mr. Bax became more definitely clerical, if
it were possible, he seemed to speak with a certain innocent craftiness,
as he pointed out that all this laid a special duty upon earnest
Christians. What men were inclined to say now was, "Oh, that
fellow--he's a parson." What we want them to say is, "He's a good
fellow"--in other words, "He is my brother." He exhorted them to keep
in touch with men of the modern type; they must sympathise with their
multifarious interests in order to keep before their eyes that whatever
discoveries were made there was one discovery which could not be
superseded, which was indeed as much of a necessity to the most
successful and most brilliant of them all as it had been to their
fathers. The humblest could help; the least important things had an
influence (here his manner became definitely priestly and his remarks
seemed to be directed to women, for indeed Mr. Bax's congregations were
mainly composed of women, and he was used to assigning them their duties
in his innocent clerical campaigns). Leaving more definite instruction,
he passed on, and his theme broadened into a peroration for which
he drew a long breath and stood very upright,--"As a drop of water,
detached, alone, separate from others, falling from the cloud and
entering the great ocean, alters, so scientists tell us, not only the
immediate spot in the ocean where it falls, but all the myriad drops
which together compose the great universe of waters, and by this means
alters the configuration of the globe and the lives of millions of sea
creatures, and finally the lives of the men and women who seek their
living upon the shores--as all this is within the compass of a single
drop of water, such as any rain shower sends in millions to lose
themselves in the earth, to lose themselves we say, but we know very
well that the fruits of the earth could not flourish without them--so
is a marvel comparable to this within the reach of each one of us, who
dropping a little word or a little deed into the great universe alters
it; yea, it is a solemn thought, _alters_ it, for good or for evil, not
for one instant, or in one vicinity, but throughout the entire race,
and for all eternity.
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