"Ah, but—pardon me; he is a clergyman."
"And therefore bound to prove, whether he believes in his own proof or not. Unworthy suspicion!" she cried, with a touch of her old manner. "If you had known that man's literary history for the last thirty years, you would not suspect him, at least, of sacrificing truth and conscience to interest, or to fear of the world's insults."
I was rebuked; and not without hope and confidence, I broached the question to the good dean when he came in—as he happened to do that very day.
"I hardly like to state my difficulties," I began—"for I am afraid that I must hurt myself in your eyes by offending your—prejudices, if you will pardon so plain-spoken an expression."
"If," he replied, in his bland courtly way, "I am so unfortunate as to have any prejudices left, you cannot do me a greater kindness than by offending them—or by any other means, however severe—to make me conscious of the locality of such a secret canker."
"But I am afraid that your own teaching has created, or at least corroborated, these doubts of mine."
"How so?"
"You first taught me to revere science. You first taught me to admire and trust the immutable order, the perfect harmony of the laws of Nature."
"Ah! I comprehend now!" he answered, in a somewhat mournful tone—"How much we have to answer for! How often, in our carelessness, we offend those little ones, whose souls are precious in the sight of God! I have thought long and earnestly on the very subject which now distresses you; perhaps every doubt which has passed through your mind, has exercised my own; and, strange to say, you first set me on that new path of thought. A conversation which passed between us years ago at D * * * * on the antithesis of natural and revealed religion—perhaps you recollect it?"
Yes, I recollected it better than he fancied, and recollected too—I thrust the thought behind me—it was even yet intolerable.