“It is beyond the power of the strongest imagination to conceive the joy and gladness of this family. The joy of seafaring men delivered from shipwreck; the joy of a man delivered from a burning house; the joy of not being found guilty at a criminal bar; the joy of receiving pardon to a condemned malefactor; the joy of freedom to a prisoner of war, is nothing in comparison to the joy of him who is delivered from going down to the pit of eternal destruction. For it is a joy unspeakable and full of glory.”
The effect of this sermon is described as overwhelmingly wonderful. The first portion, in which he pictured the mysterious and terrible being, the wild demoniac, something of a wild beast, and something of a fiend, made the people shudder. Then, shifting his scene, the catastrophe of the swine, the flight of the affrighted herdsmen, the report to the master, and the effect of the miracle on the populace, was rendered with such dramatic effect, the preacher even laughing himself, as he painted the rushing swine, hurrying down the steep place into the lake, especially the “black hog,” and all,—for they all understood the point of that allusion,—that beneath the grim grotesqueness of the scene, laughter ran over the whole multitude. But the pathos of the family scene! Mary embracing her restored husband; and the restored maniac’s experience, and hymn of praise. The place became a perfect Bochim; they wept like mourners at a funeral. Shouts of prayer and praise mingled together. One who heard that wonderful sermon says, that, at last, the people seemed like the inhabitants of a city which had been shaken by an earthquake, that, in their escape, rushed into the streets, falling upon the earth screaming, and calling upon God!
This sermon has never been printed; indeed, it is obvious that it never could be prepared for the press. It defies all criticism; and the few outlines we have attempted to present are quite inadequate to reproduce it. All who heard it understood, that it was a picture of a lunatic, and demon-haunted world; and it was beneath the impression of this, that passionate cries, universal, thankful, penitent murmurs rose; whilst amidst loud “Amens!” and sobs, and tears, some petitions ascended: “O Lord, who didst walk on the sea, that Thou mightest meet the Gadarene, cast out some demons from our midst to-night.”