Deformed as the
interior then was with galleries, and with Gavin Dunbar's flat
ceiling, an awe fell upon Robert as he entered it. When in after
years he looked down from between the pillars of the gallery, that
creeps round the church through the thickness of the wall, like an
artery, and recalled the service of this Sunday morning, he felt
more strongly than ever that such a faith had not reared that
cathedral. The service was like the church only as a dead body is
like a man. There was no fervour in it, no aspiration. The great
central tower was gone.
That morning prayers and sermon were philosophically dull, and
respectable as any after-dinner speech. Nor could it well be
otherwise: one of the favourite sayings of its minister was, that a
clergyman is nothing but a moral policeman. As such, however, he
more resembled one of Dogberry's watch. He could not even preach
hell with any vigour; for as a gentleman he recoiled from the
vulgarity of the doctrine, yielding only a few feeble words on the
subject as a sop to the Cerberus that watches over the dues of the
Bible--quite unaware that his notion of the doctrine had been drawn
from the ?neid, and not from the Bible.
'Well, have you got anything, Robert?' asked Ericson, as he entered
his room.
'Nothing,' answered Robert.
'What was the sermon about?'
'It was all to prove that God is a benevolent being.'
'Not a devil, that is,' answered Ericson.
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