He recalled the agony of those hours, the sufferings through which Rachel had passed with so much sweetness and patience, his poverty
and helplessness, the dark future before him. Then came the ray of light--Mr. Moss, with the strange commission of the deserted child. He had not courted it, had not invited it, he had had no hand in it. He had regarded it as a message from Heaven.
What followed?
The death of his own babe, the calm and peaceful death, the young soul taken to heaven, his beloved wife in an untroubled sleep by the side of her dead babe. It was a visitation of God. Again, could he be accused of having had a hand in it? Heaven forbid!
On the contrary, who could blame him for believing that it was a divine direction of the course he was to take? And who was wronged? Surely not the mother who had deserted her babe. Surely not the babe, who had found a happy home. The wrong--and herein was the sting---was to Rachel, whose life had been saved by the deceit. So far, then, was he not justified?
But if before the committal of a sin we could see the consequences of the sin--if he had seen the consequences of his--would he not have paused and said: "It rests with God. Let it be as he wills. I will be no party to the deceit"? In that case Rachel's life would have been sacrificed. There was no human doubt of it. Rachel would have died, and the blessings she had shed around her, the good she had been enabled to do, the suffering hearts she had relieved, the light she had brought into despairing homes, would never have been. Against a little evil so much good. Against a slight error so much that was sweet and beautiful.
But in these reflections he had taken into account only Rachel and himself--only their two lives. How about Ruth herself?
He had never disguised from himself that there was much in Ruth's character which was not in accordance with Rachel's views or his own, which she did not assimilate with either of their natures. Being one of his family in the eyes of the world, he had brought her up as a Jewess. She was born a Christian. Was this not a crime of which she had been made the victim? He had experienced great difficulties in her education. He wished to correct the defect which exists in ninety-nine English Jewesses out of a hundred--he wished her to pray in the Hebrew tongue, and to understand her prayers.
To this end he himself had endeavored to teach her to read and translate Hebrew. She would not learn. Even now as a woman she understood but a very few words, and this scanty knowledge was mechanical. A parrot might have learned as much. She had an aversion to Jewish society.
As a child, when she was necessarily in leading strings, she was taken by Rachel to the synagogue on every Sabbath day, but when she began to have intelligent ideas she rebelled; she would not go, and Rachel walked to the house of God alone.
It was a grief to her that Ruth would not follow in her footsteps, and she and Aaron had frequently conversed upon the subject.