If it is right and good to pick out the good wherever we see it, we can not help thinking that some of the features of "the old-time religion" would be very desirable now, and feeling some small misgivings lest the reaction against some of their errors had carried us on some points rather too far. One of those commendable things was that they made much of the grace of God and spent their days wondering at the greatness of that "amazing grace . . . that saved a wretch like me." They had strong convictions of sin in those days, like the people of Pentecost, who were "pricked in their hearts," and Felix, who "trembled," and who, when they were "saved," were proportionately thankful. Those preachers, whatever else they did or did not do, cried aloud and spared not and showed the house of Jacob their sins, and preached about hell as though it really existed. Those hearers were brought low and were made to see their pitiable, lost estate, and the contrast of their own vileness with the unapproachable holiness of God. Accordingly, like the woman of the street that came to the feet of Jesus and washed them with the rain of her hot tears of penitence and love, they loved much because much had been forgiven them, and they extolled the grace--the unmerited, unmeasurable goodness of the Hand that saved them. But it comes to pass in these [141] times that men march up unhumbled to make their confession, feeling, to all appearance, as if they were doing God a favor. And now sinners, especially well-to-do, respectable ones, are so much courted by this preacher and that, in the many competitions of the day, that they have come to think that God is greatly in need of them, and are "coy, uncertain, hard to please," even after they have been brought in. Man's part should not be overlooked; but it might be as well to put a trifle more emphasis on God's part, especially his grace, which takes all boasting out of all mouths.

[TAG 141-142]