"Yes, I do: but now, tell me how it is that I cannot always think so. I believe it all as well as you do, and yet, when I sit alone and think, my thoughts are not the same as when we sit and talk together—how is it?"
There was an earnestness in the stranger's manner, and also in his eye, as he put this question to Hubert, who, after sitting unmoved for a minute or two, at last said—
"I have felt the same many, many times; indeed, there is scarcely a truth in the Bible that I have read, which, though I believed it at one time, I have been led to doubt it another. Many a time have I gone out into the court-yard of my quarters in India, that I might see some fresh object, because upon everything in my room there seemed to stand out in large gilded letters the word 'Unbelief.' Turn where I would sometimes, the very objects and things I wished to forget were always before my eyes; indeed, blasphemy has been upon my tongue when my heart has dictated prayers. Terrible hours they have been to me. And sometimes the falling of a piece of paper, the opening of a door, or the smallest possible sound you could conceive, has so alarmed me that I have actually been afraid of myself. No one but myself can know what I endured. But I don't feel anything of the sort now. Prayer was the effectual remedy for me, and it will be so for you. I believe that such doubts and fears are extra mercies sent by God to bring us nearer to Him; so, when you feel anything of the kind, try what prayer will do. There is a great deal of seeming prayer that isn't prayer; but when the heart can feel itself going out upwards,—I mean, when it utters the words, 'Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief,' depend upon it, that upon the other side of that petition, written in words of fire, is the command to the tempter, 'Get thee behind me, Satan!'"
The stranger sighed, but then, thrusting his hands deeply into his coat pockets, as was his usual custom when in a thoughtful mood, he sat still looking over upon the broad blue sea. Hubert sat still beside him, and as the sailors moved about attending to their various duties, they gave many a glance at the two friends as they sat together. Ben had told them all something about these friends, and, though they were not all of the same way of thinking as Ben was, they imbibed from him an extra amount of respect for the Captain and the stranger; and had the part of the deck where they were accustomed to sit been a sacred part, it could not have been more free from intrusion than it was when they were there; so Hubert sat and thought; so did his friend, who was the first to speak.
"Yes, it is so," he said; "I know it is all true; I shall go to them. And now let me finish my story. I had returned from the Continent, and it was in Scotland that I buried my son; he lies beside his mother in the kirk-yard at Dunkeld; it is a pretty, quiet place, at the foot of the Grampian mountains, and there they lie—I hope to be buried there too some day. I did not think at one time that I should have lived thus long after them, but time has fled on, and it has worked its change in me. I remember that it was on my first journey after my loss that that lad rode with us to London. I shall never forget how startled I was when I first saw him: older, of course, he was, but such an exact resemblance did he bear to the one I had lost, that—it may have been a delusion—some of my affection for the dead seemed to centre in him."
"What was his name?" inquired Hubert.
"I cannot tell now, I had forgotten it long ago; indeed, I had forgotten the incident until you brought it back to my memory, it happened so long ago."
"I wonder you forgot his name, though," said Hubert; "but time works upon the memory, and makes it less retentive."
"True; especially one that has been tried like mine has. I am not an old man—I am only a little over fifty, yet see how grey I am. I attribute it to my memory being overtasked."
"And to early and deep sorrow, perhaps," replied Hubert.