Blair Collection > Rhys Lewis, minister of Bethel

78 RHYS LEWIS.
I had room to think He spoke also unto you ! To see you so
little affected by your excommunication breaks my heart, my
poor boy. Without are the dogs— without are the tempest and
the storm. You have gone out from the circle of the covenant
and the intercession ; you have lost the shelter, my dear Bob."
"It was the church that decided whether it was within or
without I should be; it was the church that repudiated me,
not me the church," rejjlied Bob.
"No, my son," rejoined my mother. "It was your own
doing entirely, and you ought to be asham.ed of it. It was
your refusal to repent and admit your sin which made the
church expel you. How often to-night, did Thomas Boweu
beg, and you decline, to own your fault and ask forgiveness ?
No, to the church your excommunication was a very painful
matter; but what else could you look for if you did not repent ?
It is useless your expecting forgiveness of God or man without
repentance."
"I can't fall in with the oj^inions of old-fashioned people,
when my own run counter to them," said Bob. "What
do you think Mr. Brown, the clergjTuan, said to me to-day,
when I mentioned the matter to him ? Why, he laughed at the
whole thing, and expressed a hope that the licking I gave the
old Soldier would do him good."
" Bob ! " cried mother, not a little warmed, " don't you talk
of the great doctrines of the Gospel as old-fashioned, in my
hearing, it's best for you."
" I did not do so," observed Bob.
"You did something very much like it," returned mother.
" Eepentance, you'll find, is a fashion you will have to ' fall in '
with, or you'll never enter into the Life. It is a fashion, Bob,
that has made thousands conquerors to all eternity. But
I'll tell you when it will become an old fashion : when the
summer hath ended, and the harvest of the soul shall have gone
by. Many will be found turning to the old fashion when it is
too late. Pray, my son, lest you be one of them. As to Mr.
Brown, I don't think much of him. A nice one he is to guide
our youth. If I wanted something for my soul's good I'd never
go to him, for, most likely, I should find him out in the fields
a-rabbit shooting. Every respect to Mr. Brown as a good