Blind Guide
William Wirt recalls an overpowering sermon from a blind man in a little wooden chapel.
Published 1803
King George III 1760-1820 Thomas Jefferson, US President 1801-1809
William Wirt recalls an overpowering sermon from a blind man in a little wooden chapel.
Published 1803
King George III 1760-1820 Thomas Jefferson, US President 1801-1809
William Wirt, a rising Virginian lawyer, published The Letters of a British Spy in 1803. He took the character of a British tourist (not a secret agent) in the US, and remarked on the habits of the Americans twenty years after the Revolutionary War. This famous passage brings to startling life a blind Christian minister in a roadside chapel in Orange County, as he preaches the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
I knew the whole history, but never, until then, had I heard the circumstances so selected, so arranged, so colored. It was all new, and I seemed to have heard it for the first time in my life. His enunciation was so deliberate, that his voice trembled on every syllable, and every heart in the assembly trembled in unison. His peculiar phrases had such force of description, that the original scene appeared to be at that moment acting before our eyes. We saw the very faces of the Jews; the staring, frightful distortions of malice and rage.* We saw the buffet;* my soul kindled with a flame of indignation, and my hands were involuntarily and convulsively clinched. But when he came to touch on the patience, the forgiving meekness, of our Saviour; when he drew, to the life, his blessed eyes streaming in tears to heaven; his voice breathing to God a soft and gentle prayer of pardon for his enemies, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!”* — the voice of the preacher, which all along faltered, grew fainter and fainter, until, his utterance being entirely obstructed by the force of his feelings, he raised his handkerchief to his eyes, and burst into a loud and irrepressible flow of grief.
* The Evangelists tell us that the people of Jerusalem, who had recently welcomed Jesus into their city as a saviour, had been so artfully stirred up by Government figures that they now demanded the release of a convicted terrorist, Barabbas, in preference to Jesus: see Luke 23:13-24.
* ‘The buffet’ is a reference to the blows Christ received from those who mockingly challenged him to live up to his reputation as a prophet: see Luke 22:64.
* See Luke 23:34.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
What made Wirt angry during the sermon?
The account of how Christ was struck.
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
The preacher recounted the crucifixion. Wirt knew the story well. The preacher made it seem new.
See if you can include one or more of these words in your answer.
IBefore. IIFamiliar. IIITell.