The unfortunate subject of the harangue, whom nature had endowed with
passions which had hitherto found no effectual restraint, could not
disguise the resentment which he felt at being thus directly held up
to the scorn, as well as the censure, of the assembled inhabitants of
the little world in which he lived. His brow grew red, his lip grew
pale, he set his teeth, he clenched his hand, and then with mechanical
readiness grasped the weapon of which the clergyman had given so
hideous a character; and at length, as the preacher heightened the
colouring of his invective, he felt his rage become so ungovernable,
that, fearful of being hurried into some deed of desperate violence,
he rose up, traversed the chapel with hasty steps, and left the
congregation.
The preacher was surprised into a sudden pause, while the fiery youth
shot across him like a flash of lightning, regarding him as he passed,
as if he had wished to dart from his eyes the same power of blighting
and of consuming. But no sooner had he crossed the chapel, and shut
with violence behind him the door of the vaulted entrance by which it
communicated with the castle, than the impropriety of his conduct
supplied Warden with one of those happier subjects for eloquence, of
which he knew how to take advantage for making a suitable impression
on his hearers. He paused for an instant, and then pronounced, in a
slow and solemn voice, the deep anathema: "He hath gone out from us
because he was not of us--the sick man hath been offended at the
wholesome bitter of the medicine--the wounded patient hath flinched
from the friendly knife of the surgeon--the sheep hath fled from the
sheepfold and delivered himself to the wolf, because he could not
assume the quiet and humble conduct demanded of us by the great
Shepherd.
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