Good Words, Ed. by N. MacLeod (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882 Excerpt: ...tried to sound, and often found no bottom to it; and in the midst of his " quips and cranks" there were many wistful sighs to know the hidden mystery. And over all there still rose, and abided steadfast in his faith, laugh and jest as he might, the face of the Crucified, the ever-beloved, ever-trusted Image and Glory of the Father. Our somewhat formal and commonplace piety, therefore, did not find many points of contact with his mind, and rather held aloof from him, as he did also from it, not because he doubted its reality, but because it was narrow and strait-laced, which he could not be. Strait-laced folk never could comprehend him; thought him strangely loose, irreverent, unprofitable, though nothing would have profited them so much as to get really for once close to his mind. It would have done them no end of good to learn how much true divine reverence could be under forms of speech quite alien to theirs, and how much yearning Christian love could express itself in ways wildly foreign to their lips. I wish I could remember half the quaint touching stories I have heard from him in illustration of this. He was an exquisite storyteller, quiet, simple, with a look in his face half-pawky, half-pathetic, which never failed to catch and keep the interest of the hearer. Other raconteurs, like Sir Daniel Macnee, had no particular point in their stories, or rather they were prickly all over with points, " like quills upon the fretful porcupine," which in the end is all one as if they had no point at all.. But John Brown's stories never failed to come to a distinct point, and leave a definite impression, so that, minus a great deal that belonged to him personally, they could still be tolerably well told by another. Those who could not pierce ...