Her face
reveals the force of her emotions, her voice, which is musical and
persuasive, the depth of her compassion. In her sitting-room, which is
almost a study and nearly an office, hangs a portrait of Newman, and a
_prie-Dieu_ stands against one of the walls half-hidden by bookshelves.
She is one of the few very busy people I have known who give one no
feeling of an inward commotion.
Apart from her natural eloquence and her unmistakable sincerity, apart
even from the attractive fullness of her humanity, I think the notable
success of her preaching is to be attributed to a single reason, quite
outside any such considerations. It is a reason of great importance to
the modern student of religious psychology. Miss Royden preaches Christ
as a Power.
To others she leaves the esoteric aspects of religion, and the
ceremonial of worship, and the difficulties of theology, and the
mechanism of parochial organisation. Her mission, as she receives it, is
to preach to people who are unwilling and suffering victims of sin, or
who are tortured by theological indecision, that Christ is a Power, a
Power that works miracles, a Power that can change the habits of a
lifetime, perhaps the very tissues of a poisoned body, and can give both
peace and guidance to the soul that is dragged this way and that.
One may be pardoned for remarking that this is a rather unusual form of
preaching in any of the respectable churches.
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