“Which is widening every moment; which delay may render impassable! It is yet spanned by a slender bridge of hope; but that bridge is trembling,—shaking,—Annabella, if you hold back now, it may sink before your eyes, and for ever!”
“What would you have me to do?” said the countess.
“Write a letter to the earl full of the humblest submission; tell him with what real grief and contrition—”
“Ida, you do not know me!” cried Annabella, pushing the loose hair impatiently back from her temples; “I cannot play the part of a penitent child, begging pardon for having been naughty; I cannot cringe beneath the rod, like a slave trembling before his master!”
“Anna!” exclaimed Ida, fixing on her cousin the earnest gaze of her expressive eyes, “must the slender bridge—your last hope—be broken down beneath the weight of your pride?”
“Pride,” observed the Countess, “has been termed the weakness of noble natures.”
“Pride,—what is it,” exclaimed Ida, “as mirrored in the word of God? Is it not of the world,—that world that passeth away; doth not the Lord resist the proud, while giving grace unto the humble? Doth not inspired truth declare that before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honour is humility? Is not the Saviour’s blessing on the meek, and on such as are poor in spirit? Why should I multiply quotations? Your own heart must tell you, dear Anna, that if one thing more than another stands between man and his Maker, and darkens the light of Heaven, it is the baneful spirit of pride!”
“It is interwoven with my nature,” said the countess.
“The life-long battle of the Christian is with his fallen nature, but it is a struggle in which he is not left alone. Nay, a new heart, a new nature is given to those who seek it in earnest prayer; a new heart filled with the Spirit of God, a new nature conformed to the likeness of Him who was meek and lowly in spirit. What are the Bible emblems of those who are the soldiers and saints of the Lord? The lamb, the dove, the little child! Can such be fit types of one who struggles against lawful authority, and recoils from the duty of submission?”