"Yes," he unwillingly admitted.
"And was the testimony of that one sense sufficient to convince you of the existence of pain?"
"Yes," he replied.
"And the testimony of that same sense has convinced me," she said, "not only of the existence, but of the presence and love, of God."
"Well, mother," said Phil, who shuffled about uneasily, "I have seen so many hypocrites among Church members that I, for one, do not wish to be classed with them. There was Tom Adams, one of Mr. Meach's favorites, who was always in his seat at the meeting-house, who would not shave on Sunday, but had no conscience about shaving us six days in the week. He would not blacken his boots on Sunday, but he did not hesitate to blacken the character of any man in the settlement who disagreed with him in anything, on Sunday or any other day."
"The very existence of hypocrites is a proof of the existence of a reality," said Mrs. Wright, "for if you should happen to find a counterfeit coin it would need no argument to convince you that it was copied from a genuine one. There are genuine Christians as well as counterfeits, and the omniscient and omnipresent God knows the one from the other; and as hypocrites have not the faintest chance of heaven, you had better beware, dear boy, lest you should be 'classed with hypocrites' throughout the never-ending ages of eternity."
Phil's scepticism was a crushing grief to his mother and sister, who set themselves resolutely to win him to the faith with the full force of their intellects. They read, they pleaded, they wrote, they argued, they reasoned. As time went on their best efforts seemed frustrated, and, when at length they seemed to come to the end of all their resources, both cast themselves in utter despair upon God and prayed as only a mother and sister can. Nor did they pray in vain, for the time came when he found his way out of the darkness into the light of truth.
CHAPTER VIII.
CONVENT DAYS.
1806.