Still overcoming evil, and by small
Accomplishing great things, by things deemed weak
Subverting worldly strong, and worldly wise
By simply meek!”
Milton.
It is the darkest hour of night, that hour which precedes the dawn. A thousand stars are spangling the deep azure of the sky, looking down, like angels’ eyes, on a world of sin and sorrow. Augustine’s gaze is fixed upon one beauteous planet, which, in its calm light, outshines the tremulous glory of the constellations. Mabel has wearily fallen asleep where she sits, resting her head on her arm, the piercing cold of the upper air making her slumber the deeper. The earl, still stretched at the bottom of the car, is also finding a short oblivion of woe, and in dreams is wandering again upon the warm, bright, joyous earth, with Annabella at his side.
Augustine, on his dizzy height, in the stillness of the hour, feels himself alone with his God. The conversation held at the vicarage with his brother now recurs to his mind with a deep and solemn effect. Augustine draws a mental parallel between his own present awful position and that in which his soul has for so long unfearingly remained. Has he not been, as it were, floating between earth and heaven, carried up by his pride, full inflated as that swollen ball which is at this moment bearing him onward perhaps to destruction! Has he any reason to rejoice that he has risen high above the mass of his fellow-creatures, if his very exaltation prove the means of his deeper fall!
“Yes, fool that I was! I believed my intellect formed to pierce through the mists, to rise above the clouds, to find for itself a path that no mortal had discovered before! With proud presumption I refused the guidance of Faith in those regions to which Faith alone has access. I trusted to reason—philosophy—genius!—what have they done for me here? I have proved unequal even to the task of regulating the motions of this silken machine, yet I feared not to steer my own way through the vast mysteries of spiritual knowledge! As regards the soul as well as its mortal tenement, I have been the sport of the changing winds, enwrapt in the seething mist, struggling on through thickening darkness—and to what point now have I reached? I see the calm, still stars above me, shining like the eternal truths which audacious Pride once dared to question; I view the orbs which for ages unnumbered have kept their steady course through infinite space, upheld by the Power and Wisdom whose mysteries I vainly sought to fathom; earth’s lights have all faded and gone, the brightest illumine no more, the clearest throw no ray on this darkness,—the gems of the firmament alone, unchanged and unapproachable by man, are glittering over me still!
“Yes, I feel myself an atom in the vast universe which is filled by God! And yet man’s moral responsibility—the awful trust of an immortal, an accountable soul—give a fearful dignity to him still! Am I fit to appear in the presence of Him before whose throne I so soon may stand? Is there anything in myself to which I can cling for support in the day of judgment? Can I plead my merits—my virtues—my works? No; the truth is forced upon me here, which mortal presumption so long refused to acknowledge. As well might I fling myself from this car, and falling a thousand fathoms hope to reach the earth uninjured, as trust to find safety for a guilty and sentenced soul without the one sacrifice for sin, the atonement provided for those who with child-like faith rest upon it, and it only!”