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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: how easily we are deceived. No one could hear him preach and not
be persuaded he was a man of extraordinary parts. All our
islanders easily acquire a kind of eloquence, and can roll out and
illustrate, with a great deal of vigour and fancy, second-hand
sermons; but Namu's sermons are his own, and I cannot deny that I
have found them means of grace. Moreover, he has a keen curiosity
in secular things, does not fear work, is clever at carpentering,
and has made himself so much respected among the neighbouring
pastors that we call him, in a jest which is half serious, the
Bishop of the East. In short, I was proud of the man; all the more
puzzled by his letter, and took an occasion to come this way. The
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