The Vicar's Daughter - George MacDonald (read dune txt) 📗

ground on which a man of your influence, Mr. Morley, might do much.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Miss Clare. So long as I pay the market value for the labor I employ, I do not see how more can be demanded of me—as a right, that is.”

“We will not enter on that question, Marion, if you please,” said Lady Bernard.

Miss Clare nodded, and went on.

“Is it just in the nation,” she said, “to abandon those who can do nothing to help themselves, to be preyed upon by bad landlords, railway-companies, and dishonest tradespeople with their false weights, balances, and measures, and adulterations to boot,—from all of whom their more wealthy brethren are comparatively safe? Does not a nation exist for the protection of its parts? Have these no claims on the nation? Would you call it just in a family to abandon its less gifted to any moral or physical spoiler who might be bred within it? To say a citizen must take care of himself may be just where he can take care of himself, but cannot be just where that is impossible. A thousand causes, originating mainly in the neglect of their neighbors, have combined to sink the poor into a state of moral paralysis: are we to say the paralyzed may be run over in our streets with impunity? Must they take care of themselves? Have we not to awake them to the very sense that life is worth caring for? I cannot but feel that the bond between such a neglected class, and any nation in which it is to be found, is very little stronger than, if indeed as strong as, that between slaves and their masters. Who could preach to them their duty to the nation, except on grounds which such a nation acknowledges only with the lips?”

“You have to prove, Miss Clare,” said Mr. Morley, in a tone that seemed intended to imply that he was not in the least affected by mistimed eloquence, “that the relation is that of a family.”

“I believe,” she returned, “that it is closer than the mere human relation of the parts of any family. But, at all events, until we are their friends it is worse than useless to pretend to be such, and until they feel that we are their friends it is worse than useless to talk to them about God and religion. They will none of it from our lips.”

“Will they from any lips? Are they not already too far sunk towards the brutes to be capable of receiving any such rousing influence?” suggested Mr. Blackstone with a smile, evidently wishing to draw Miss Clare out yet further.

“You turn me aside, Mr. Blackstone. I wanted to urge Mr. Morley to go into parliament as spiritual member for the poor of our large towns. Besides, I know you don’t think as your question would imply. As far as my experience guides me, I am bound to believe that there is a spot of soil in every heart sufficient for the growth of a gospel seed. And I believe, moreover, that not only is he a fellow-worker with God who sows that seed, but that he also is one who opens a way for that seed to enter the soil. If such preparation were not necessary, the Saviour would have come the moment Adam and Eve fell, and would have required no Baptist to precede him.”

A good deal followed which I would gladly record, enabled as I now am to assist my memory by a more thorough acquaintance with the views of Miss Clare. But I fear I have already given too much conversation at once.

 

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE END OF THE EVENING.

 

What specially delighted me during the evening, was the marked attention, and the serious look in the eyes, with which Roger listened. It was not often that he did look serious. He preferred, if possible, to get a joke out of a thing; but when he did enter into an argument, he was always fair. Although prone to take the side of objection to any religious remark, he yet never said any thing against religion itself. But his principles, and indeed his nature, seemed as yet in a state of solution,—uncrystallized, as my father would say. Mr. Morley, on the other hand, seemed an insoluble mass, incapable of receiving impressions from other minds. Any suggestion of his own mind, as to a course of action or a mode of thinking, had a good chance of being without question regarded as reasonable and right: he was more than ordinarily prejudiced in his own favor. The day after they thus met at our house, Miss Clare had a letter from him, in which he took the high hand with her, rebuking her solemnly for her presumption in saying, as he represented it, that no good could be done except after the fashion she laid down, and assuring her that she would thus alienate the most valuable assistance from any scheme she might cherish for the amelioration of the condition of the lower classes. It ended with the offer of a yearly subscription of five pounds to any project of the wisdom of which she would take the trouble to convince him. She replied, thanking him both, for his advice and his offer, but saying that, as she had no scheme on foot requiring such assistance, she could not at present accept the latter; should, however, any thing show itself for which that sort of help was desirable, she would take the liberty of reminding him of it.

When the ladies rose, Judy took me aside, and said,—

“What does it all mean, Wynnie?”

“Just what you hear,” I answered.

“You asked us, to have a triumph over me, you naughty thing!”

“Well—partly—if I am to be honest; but far more to make you do justice to Miss Clare. You being my cousin, she had a right to that at my hands.”

“Does Lady Bernard know as much about her as she seems?”

“She knows every thing about her, and visits her, too, in her very questionable abode. You see, Judy, a report may be a fact, and yet be untrue.”

“I’m not going to be lectured by a chit like you. But I should like to have a little talk with Miss Clare.”

“I will make you an opportunity.”

I did so, and could not help overhearing a very pretty apology; to which Miss Clare replied, that she feared she only was to blame, inasmuch as she ought to have explained the peculiarity of her circumstances before accepting the engagement. At the time, it had not appeared to her necessary, she said; but now she would make a point of explaining before she accepted any fresh duty of the kind, for she saw it would be fairer to both parties. It was no wonder such an answer should entirely disarm cousin Judy, who forthwith begged she would, if she had no objection, resume her lessons with the children at the commencement of the next quarter.

“But I understand from Mrs. Percivale,” objected Miss Clare, “that the office is filled to your thorough satisfaction.”

“Yes; the lady I have is an excellent teacher; but the engagement was only for a quarter.”

“If you have no other reason for parting with her, I could not think of stepping into her place. It would be a great disappointment to her, and my want of openness with you would be the cause of it. If you should part with her for any other reason, I should be very glad to serve you again.”

Judy tried to argue with her, but Miss Clare was immovable.

“Will you let me come and see you, then?” said Judy.

“With all my heart,” she answered. “You had better come with Mrs. Percivale, though, for it would not be easy for you to find the place.”

We went up to the drawing-room to tea, passing through the study, and taking the gentlemen with us. Miss Clare played to us, and sang several songs,—the last a ballad of Schiller’s, “The Pilgrim,” setting forth the constant striving of the soul after something of which it never lays hold. The last verse of it I managed to remember. It was this:—

Thither, ah! no footpath bendeth; Ah! the heaven above, so clear, Never, earth to touch, descendeth; And the There is never Here!”

“That is a beautiful song, and beautifully sung,” said Mr. Blackstone; “but I am a little surprised at your choosing to sing it, for you cannot call it a Christian song.”

“Don’t you find St. Paul saying something very like it again and again?” Miss Clare returned with a smile, as if she perfectly knew what he objected to. “You find him striving, journeying, pressing on, reaching out to lay hold, but never having attained,—ever conscious of failure.”

“That is true; but there is this huge difference,—that St. Paul expects to attain,—is confident of one day attaining; while Schiller, in that lyric at least, seems—I only say seems—hopeless of any satisfaction: Das Dort ist niemals Hier.”

“It may have been only a mood,” said Miss Clare. “St. Paul had his moods also, from which he had to rouse himself to fresh faith and hope and effort.”

“But St. Paul writes only in his hopeful moods. Such alone he counts worthy of sharing with his fellows. If there is no hope, why, upon any theory, take the trouble to say so? It is pure weakness to desire sympathy in hopelessness. Hope alone justifies as well as excites either utterance or effort.”

“I admit all you say, Mr. Blackstone; and yet I think such a poem invaluable; for is not Schiller therein the mouth of the whole creation groaning and travailling and inarticulately crying out for the sonship?”

“Unconsciously, then. He does not know what he wants.”

“Apparently, not. Neither does the creation. Neither do we. We do know it is oneness with God we want; but of what that means we have only vague, though glowing hints.”

I saw Mr. Morley scratch his left ear like a young calf, only more impatiently.

“But,” Miss Clare went on, “is it not invaluable as the confession of one of the noblest of spirits, that he had found neither repose nor sense of attainment?”

“But,” said Roger, “did you ever know any one of those you call Christians who professed to have reached satisfaction; or, if so, whose life would justify you in believing him?”

“I have never known a satisfied Christian, I confess,” answered Miss Clare. “Indeed, I should take satisfaction as a poor voucher for Christianity. But I have known several contented Christians. I might, in respect of one or two of them, use a stronger word,—certainly not satisfied. I believe there is a grand, essential unsatisfaction,—I do not mean dissatisfaction,—which adds the delight of expectation to the peace of attainment; and that, I presume, is the very consciousness of heaven. But where faith may not have produced even contentment, it will yet sustain hope: which, if we may judge from the ballad, no mere aspiration can. We must believe in a living ideal, before we can have a tireless heart; an ideal which draws our poor vague ideal to itself, to fill it full and make it alive.”

I should have been amazed to hear Miss Clare talk like this, had I not often heard my father say that aspiration and obedience were the two mightiest forces for development. Her own needs and her own deeds had been her tutors; and the light by which she had read their lessons was the candle of the Lord within her.

When my husband would have put her into Lady Bernard’s carriage, as they were leaving, she said she should prefer walking home; and, as Lady Bernard did not