Brother Adkin almost groaned in spirit at this unwelcome and not-to-be-denied invitation to perform ministerial duties on the Sabbath.  Of theological subjects, scarcely a thought had entered his mind since Monday morning; and, certainly, the states through which he had passed were little calculated to elevate his affections, or make clear his spiritual intuitions.

It was twelve o’clock before Mr. Adkin was able to retire on that night.  As he rested his weary and now aching head on his pillow, he endeavoured to turn his mind from worldly things, and fix it upon things heavenly and eternal.  But, the current of thought and affection had too long been flowing in another channel.  The very effort to check its onward course, caused disturbance and obscurity.  There was a brief but fruitless struggle, when overtaxed nature vindicated her claims, and as the lay preacher found relief from perplexing thoughts and a troubled conscience, in refreshing slumber.

In the half-dreaming, half-waking state that comes with the dawning of day, Mr. Adkin’s thoughts flowed on again in the old channel, and when full consciousness came, he found himself busy with questions of profit and loss.  Self-accusation and humiliation followed.  He “wrote bitter things against himself,” for this involuntary desecration of the Sabbath.

Rising early, he took his Bible, and after turning over book after book and scanning chapter after chapter, finally chose a verse as the text from which he would preach.  Hurriedly and imperfectly our lay preacher conned his subject.  Clearness of discrimination, grasp of thought, orderly arrangement, were out of the question.  That would have been too much for a master mind, under similar circumstances.

Eleven o’clock came around quickly, and painfully conscious of an obscure and confused state of mind, Mr. Adkin entered the house of God and ascended the pulpit.  A little while he sat, endeavouring to collect his thoughts; then he arose and commenced giving out a hymn.  Lifting his eyes from the book, as he finished reading the first verse, he saw, directly in front of him, the man from whom he had purchased the forty bushels of corn.  He was looking at him fixedly, and there was on his countenance an expression of surprise and contempt, that, bringing back, as the man’s presence did, a vivid recollection of the events of Monday, almost deprived Mr. Adkin, for a moment or two, of utterance.  He faltered, caught his breath, and went on again with the reading.  On raising his eyes at the conclusion of the second verse, Mr. Adkin saw his corn customer slowly moving down the aisle toward the door of entrance.  How keenly he felt the rebuke!  How sadly conscious was he of being out of place in the pulpit!