“It is very unkind in you to talk of such things to me when I am weak and nervous, it makes one so horribly gloomy.”
“Does it make one gloomy to hear of sins being pardoned; does it make one gloomy to hear of a Father in heaven; to know that treasures are laid up for us where neither moth nor rust can corrupt, where happiness is as lasting as it is perfect. Did it make me gloomy to hear that I had a rich inheritance?”
“Oh, that was quite a different thing!” cried Clementina, “from becoming one of your pious saints. You talk to me now only about happiness in religion, but I know very well all the lectures upon holiness, and unworldliness, and repentance that will follow.”
“Still my comparison holds,” pursued the young peer, “for I have not yet entered into full possession of my estate; I have yet many a difficult lesson to learn, nor can I spend but a portion of what is my own.”
“You have a good deal of enjoyment in the meantime.”
“I have, Clementina, and in this, most of all, may my position be compared to a Christian’s. He has great enjoyment, pure, present enjoyment, a beginning of his pleasures even here. Does not the Bible command us to rejoice without ceasing?—who can rejoice if the Christian does not? Yes,” continued Ernest, his eyes sparkling with animation, “how very, very happy those must be who have gone a long way on their pilgrimage, when I, who am only struggling at the entrance, can say that I have found no pleasure to equal it! Oh, Clementina! my joy when I heard that I was raised from being a poor peasant, forced to toil for my bread, to become one of the nobles of the land—the joy which I felt then was as nothing compared to my delight when I first felt assured that my sins were forgiven me.”
Clementina made no reply, and soon after expressed her wish to retire to rest. Those who have never known the happiness of religion find it difficult to believe that it really bestows any. A blind man cannot understand the beauty of light, nor the man deaf from his birth the delight of music. Yet music and light are around us still, and such to the soul is “the joy of the Lord.”
“Perhaps some day she may reflect over what has passed,” thought Ernest, as he bade his cousin a courteous good-night; “and at least one thing is left that I can do for her still—I will never cease to pray.”