“But if he should prove to have a right to the
property?”
“Then he ought to have the property. But
it is not my business to discover or to enforce the
right. My business is to help the young man to
make little of the matter, whether he find himself
the lawful heir, or a much injured man through his
deceived mother.—Tell me whose servant I
am.”
“You are the servant of Jesus Christ.”
“—Who said the servant must be as
his master.—Do you remember how he did
when a man came asking him to see justice done between
him and his brother?—He said, ’Man,
who made me a judge and a divider over you? Take
heed and beware of covetousness.’—It
may be your business to see about it; I don’t
know; I scarcely think it is. My advice would
be to keep quiet yet a while, and see what will come.
There appears no occasion for hurry. The universe
does not hang on the question of Richard’s rights.
Will it be much whether your friend go into the other
world as late heir, or even late owner of Mortgrange,
or as the son of Tuke, the bookbinder? Will the
dead be moved from beneath to meet the young baronet
at his coming? Will the bookbinder go out into
dry places, seeking rest and finding none?”
THE PARSON’S COUNSEL.
It was a happy thing for both Richard and Barbara,
that Barbara was now under another influence besides
Richard’s. The more she saw of Mr. and
Mrs. Wingfold, the more she felt that she had come
into a region of reality and life. Both of them
understood what a rare creature she was, and spoke
as freely before her as if she had been a sister of
their own age and standing. Barbara on her side
knew no restraint with them, but spoke in like freedom,
both of her past life, and the present state of things
at home—which was indeed no secret, being
manifest to the servants, and therefore known to all
the county, in forms more or less correct, as it had
been to all the colony before they left it. She
talked almost as freely of Richard, and of the great
desire she had to get him to believe in God.
“It was a dangerous relation between two such
young people!” some of my readers will remark.—Yes,
I answer—dangerous, as every true thing
is dangerous to him or her who is not true; as every
good thing is dangerous to him or her who is not good.
Nothing is so dangerous as religious sentiment without
truth in the inward parts. Certain attempts at
what is called conversion, are but writhings of the
passion of self-recommendation; gapings of the greed
of power over others; swellings of the ambition to
propagate one’s own creed, and proselytize victoriously;
hungerings to see self reflected in another convinced.
In such efforts lie dangers as vulgar as the minds
that make them, and love the excitement of them.
But genuine love is far beyond such grovelling delights;
and the peril of such a relation is in inverse proportion
to the reality of those concerned.
