Out in the Forty-Five Part 38

He smiled, and drew out a new penny. "Then let me make the less valuable purchase."

Even Mr Raymond was a welcome change from her.

"Then tell me, Mr Raymond," said I, "do things ever happen exactly as one wishes them to do?"

"Once in a thousand times, perhaps," said he. "I should imagine, though, that the occasion usually comes after long waiting and bitter pain. Generally there is something to remind us that this is not our rest."

"Why?" I said, and I heard my soul go into the word.

"Why not?" answered he, pithily. "Is the servant so much greater than his Lord that he may reasonably look for things to be otherwise? Cast your mind's eye over the life of Christ our Master, and see on how many occasions matters happened in a way which you would suppose entirely to His liking? Can you name one?"

I thought, and could not see anything, except when He did a miracle, or when He spent a night in prayer to G.o.d.

"I give you those nights of prayer," said Mr Raymond. "But I think you must yield me the miracles. Unquestionably it must have given Him pleasure to relieve pain; but see how much pain to Himself was often mixed in it!--'Looking up to Heaven, He sighed' ere He did one; He wept, just before performing another; He cried, 'How long shall I be with you, and suffer you!' ere he worked a third. No, Miss Courtenay, the miracles of our Divine Master were not all pleasure to Himself. Indeed, I should be inclined to venture further, and ask if we have no hint that they were wrought at a considerable cost to Himself. He 'took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses'; He knew when 'virtue had gone out of Him.' That may mean only that His Divine knowledge was conscious of it; but taking both pa.s.sages together, is it not possible that His wonderful works were wrought at personal expense--that His human body suffered weakness, faintness, perhaps acute pain, as the natural consequence of doing them? You will understand that I merely throw out the hint. Scripture does not speak decisively; and where G.o.d does not decide, it is well for men to be cautious."

"Mr Raymond," I exclaimed, "how can you be a Whig?"

"Pardon me, but what is the connection?" asked he, looking both astonished and diverted.

"Don't you see it? You are much too good for one."

Mr Raymond laughed. "Thank you; I fear I did not detect the compliment. May I put the counter question, and ask how you came to be a Tory?"

"Why, I was born so," said I.

"And so was I a Whig," replied he.

"Excuse me!" came laughingly from my other hand, in Miss Newton's voice.

"The waters are not quite so smooth as they were, and I thought I had better be at hand to pour a little oil if necessary. Mr Raymond, I am afraid you are getting worldly. Is that not the proper word?"

"It is the proper word for an improper thing," said Mr Raymond. "On what evidence do you rest your accusation, Miss Theresa?"

"On the fact that you have twice in one week made your appearance in Mrs Desborough's rooms, which are the very pink of worldliness."

"Have I come without reason?"

"You have not given it me," said the young lady, laughing. "You cannot always come to tell one of the guests that his (or her) relations have been taken prisoner."

I looked up so suddenly that Mr Raymond answered my eyes before he replied to Miss Newton's words.

"No, Miss Courtenay, I did not come with ill news. I suppose a man may have two reasons at different times for the same action?"

"Where is our handsome friend of the dreadful name?" asked Miss Newton.

"Mr Hebblethwaite? He told me he could not be here this evening."

"That man will have to change his name before anybody will marry him,"

said Miss Newton.

"Then, if he takes my advice, he will continue in single blessedness,"

was Mr Raymond's answer.

"Now, why?"

"Do you not think it would be preferable to marrying a woman whose regard for you was limited by the alphabet?"

"Mr Raymond, you and Miss Courtenay do say such odd things! Is that because you are religious people?"

Oh, what a strange feeling came over me when Miss Newton said that!

What made her count me a "religious person"? Am I one? I should not have dared to say it. I should like to be so; I am afraid to go further. To reckon myself one would be to sign my name as a queen, and I am not sufficiently sure of my royal blood to do it.

But what had I ever said to Miss Newton that she should entertain such an idea? Mr Raymond glanced at me with a brotherly sort of smile, which I wished from my heart that I deserved, (for all he is a Whig!) and was afraid I did not. Then he said,--

"Religious people, I believe, are often very odd things in the eyes of irreligious people. Do you count yourself among the latter cla.s.s, Miss Theresa?"

"Oh, I don't make any profession," said she. "I have but one life, and I want to enjoy it."

"That is exactly my position," said Mr Raymond, smiling.

"Now, what do you mean?" demanded she. "Don't the Methodists label everything 'wicked' that one wants to do?"

"'One' sometimes means another," replied Mr Raymond, with a funny look in his eyes. "They do not put that label on anything I want to do. I cannot answer for other people."

"I am sure they would put it on a thousand things that I should," said Miss Newton.

"Am I to understand that speaks badly for them?--or for you?"

"Mr Raymond! You know I make no profession of religion. I think it is much better to be free."

The look in Mr Raymond's eyes seemed to me very like Divine compa.s.sion.

"Miss Theresa, your remark makes me ask two questions: Do you suppose that 'making no profession' will excuse you to the Lord? Does your Bible read, 'He that maketh no profession shall be saved'? And also-- Are you free?"

"Am I free? Why, of course I am!" she cried. "I can do what I like, without asking leave of priest or minister."

"G.o.d forbid that you should ask leave of priest or minister! But I can do what I like, also. What the Lord likes, I like. No priest on earth shall come between Him and me."

"That sounds very grand, Mr Raymond. But just listen to me. I know a young gentlewoman who says the same thing. She is dead against everything which she thinks to be Popery. Submit to the Pope?--no, not for a moment! But this dear creature has a pet minister, who is to her exactly what the Pope is to his subjects. She won't dance, because Mr Gardiner disapproves of it; she can't sing a song, of the most innocent sort, because Mr Gardiner thinks songs naughty; she won't do this, and she can't go there, because Mr Gardiner says this and that. Now, what do you call that?"

"Human nature, Miss Theresa. Depend upon it, Popery would never have the hold it has if there were not in it something very palatable to human nature. Human nature is of two varieties, and Satan's two grand masterpieces appeal to both. To the proud man, who is a law unto himself, he brings infidelity as the grand temptation: 'Ye shall be as G.o.ds'--'Yea, hath G.o.d said?'--and lastly, 'There is no G.o.d.' To the weaker nature, which demands authority to lean on, he brings Popery, offering to decide for you all the difficult questions of heart and life with authority--offering you the romantic fancy of a semi-G.o.ddess in its worship of the Virgin, in whose gentle bosom you may repose every trouble, and an infallible Church which can set everything right for you. Now just notice how far G.o.d's religion is from both. It does not say, 'Ye shall be as G.o.ds;' but, 'This Man receiveth sinners': not, 'Hath G.o.d said?' but, 'Thus saith the Lord.' Turn to the other side, and instead of your compa.s.sionate G.o.ddess, it offers you Jesus, the G.o.d-man, able to succour them that are tempted, in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted. Infallibility, too, it offers you, but not resident in a man, nor in a body of men. It resides in a book, which is not the word of man, but the Word of G.o.d, and effective only when it is interpreted and applied by the living Spirit, whose guidance may be had by the weakest and poorest child that will ask G.o.d for Him."

"We are not in church, my dear Mr Raymond!" said Miss Newton, shrugging her shoulders. "If you preach over the hour, Mrs Desborough will be sending Caesar to show you the clock."

"I have not exceeded it yet, I think," said Mr Raymond.

"Well, I wish you would talk to Eliza Wilkinson instead of me. She says she has been--is 'converted' the word? I am ill up in Methodist terms.

And ever since she is converted, or was converted, she does not commit sin. I wish you would talk to her."