Nothing could be less like the ordinary type of
the Ranter than Dinah. She was not preaching as she heard others preach,
but speaking directly from her own emotions and under the inspiration of
her own simple faith.
But now she had entered into a new current of feeling. Her manner became
less calm, her utterance more rapid and agitated, as she tried to bring
home to the people their guilt their wilful darkness, their state of
disobedience to God--as she dwelt on the hatefulness of sin, the Divine
holiness, and the sufferings of the Saviour, by which a way had been
opened for their salvation. At last it seemed as if, in her yearning
desire to reclaim the lost sheep, she could not be satisfied by
addressing her hearers as a body. She appealed first to one and then to
another, beseeching them with tears to turn to God while there was
yet time; painting to them the desolation of their souls, lost in sin,
feeding on the husks of this miserable world, far away from God their
Father; and then the love of the Saviour, who was waiting and watching
for their return.
There was many a responsive sigh and groan from her fellow-Methodists,
but the village mind does not easily take fire, and a little smouldering
vague anxiety that might easily die out again was the utmost effect
Dinah's preaching had wrought in them at present.
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