XVIII.
Self-Reproach.
"Are you going to see poor Stone to-morrow?" said Persis Franks to her husband on the evening of that same Saturday.
"Ay, Sunday is the only day when I can find time now to visit a sick friend."
"I am sure that in this case it is 'the better day the better deed,'" observed Persis, as her fingers briskly plied the needle, while the pile of unmended stockings on her right hand was gradually growing small, as pair after pair, neatly darned and folded, were transferred to the left. "Mrs. Stone was saying to me to-day how much her husband enjoys your calls. You will never regret these visits, Ned."
"Now it's odd enough, wife, that at the moment when you spoke to me I was thinking of these same visits of mine to poor Stone, and thinking of them with regret. I might use a stronger word," continued Franks, as his wife glanced up with mild surprise; "I've been taking myself to task for these same Sunday visits."
"Surely, dearest, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day; that is what our Lord himself has told us."
"Ay, to do good," repeated Franks; "but I'm not clear that I've not rather done Ben Stone harm. You and I are alone, wifie, and I don't mind saying to you what I wouldn't say to any one else." Franks lowered his voice as he went on. "Stone's voyage through life has been a very easy one; it seems almost as if his vessel had been one that could guide itself without any pilot at all; he has never met a storm that I've heard of,—all has been smooth sailing with him. And yet, wifie, I fear that Stone has not had his eye fixed on the Pole-Star, nor his finger tracing the right course on the Bible-chart. Self-righteousness is a sunken rock, none the less dangerous for being sunken, and if a poor bark go to pieces upon it, we know that it's just as surely lost as if it had gone down in the whirlpool of drunkenness, or of any other open vice."
"But I do not exactly see what you have to reproach yourself with if poor Stone think himself a better Christian than he actually is," observed Persis.
"Don't you see I've a kind of credit in the village for hanging out my colors boldly, and trying at least to sail by the chart? When I go Sunday after Sunday and sit with a sick, I fear a dying man, and join with him in cheerful talk, as if I'd never an object but to make the time pass pleasantly, I only cause him to think, 'There's Ned Franks, a dreadfully strict and precise old tar; he must be sure that I'm steering all right, for if he saw danger he'd be certain to bid me sheer off.'"