NIGHT AND MORNING AT THE CONVENT.
Until it was quite late, Manna walked up and down the broad pathway on the island, holding the Superior and the Professorin by the hand. It seemed to her, that two loving potencies, each of which had its own valid claim, were contending to get possession of her.
It would be difficult to say how they came upon the topic, but the two ladies were discussing the subject of dogmatic belief. The Professorin maintained that salvability consisted in a willingness to perceive and acknowledge a wrong impulse, an error, or a transgression. The Superior agreed with this, but showed that one was always liable to return to a false view in the highest things, if a fixed and unalterable revealed doctrine, continually published anew through some infallible medium, did not provide a remedy against error; otherwise, one never knew whether he had not fallen into it afresh, and can never be freed from the pain of choosing.
The Superior had always a positive belief to fall back upon, while the Professorin was obliged to find some new basis and reason for every question that came up, which made her appear unsettled and doubtful. And this apparent indecision was increased by the feeling she had of not being justified in contending against a faith so firm and so beneficent in its influence. An unrest, like that of a spy, who, from the highest patriotic motives, inspects an enemy's camp, characterized her whole manner, and she blamed herself for having undertaken the commission. But she was now at the post, and must defend her views. Wishing to find some impregnable position, she represented to Manna that her father wanted to organize a general plan of systematic charity, and that it would be a noble vocation for her to take part in it. The Superior waited for Manna to reply, and she now said:—
"My father's donations do not fall into the right hands; we can do nothing but restore the property to him who alone has the right to determine what use shall be made of it."
There was more in Manna's reply than appeared on the surface.
The Professorin remarked that every poor man was a messenger of mercy, and every one who needed help made a demand for sacrifices; that it was not enough to bestow gifts, but one must personally devote himself to the distressed. The alms was not the important thing, but the pains which one must take on the supplicant's account. How often a man, as he goes along the street in winter, well wrapped up in his furs, bestows an alms upon a poor, freezing beggar! For him to unbutton his coat, and to look for something to give, is of more account than the gift itself, at least to the giver.
Manna answered that women could not do such a work by themselves. The Superior joined in, saying that she had advised decidedly against Manna's taking the veil, for it was to be feared that she had no true vocation for it. Then she added in a sharp tone to the Professorin:—"We are wholly indifferent to the accusation of having tried to get possession of the child's property; we do not despise the wealth, we can do a great deal of good with it; but it is the child's soul that we value, and we do not stop to inquire whether worldlings believe it or not."
The Professorin was glad to find herself at last in the cell where she was to sleep. She had never slept at a convent, and she had again the disagreeable feeling of being a traitress and a spy. She said to herself with a smile:—
"I am rejoiced now that I forgot Parker's book; it would be a fresh treachery to have and to read his words and his thoughts here in this house."