What she thought reasonable—Christianity, modified by the world’s progress—was her tenet, and she had no scruple in partaking in any act of worship; while naturally conscientious, and loving all the virtues, she viewed the terrors of religion as the scourge of the grovelling and superstitious; or if suffering existed at all, it could be only as expiation, conducting to a condition of high intellect and perfect morality. No other view, least of all that of a vicarious atonement, seemed to her worthy of the beneficence of the God whom she had set up for herself.
Thus had she rested for twenty years; but of late she had been dissatisfied. Living with Phœbe, ‘though the child was not naturally intellectual,’ there was no avoiding the impression that what she acted and rested on was substantial truth. ‘The same with others,’ said Miss Fennimore, meaning her auditor himself. ‘And, again, I cannot but feel that devotion to any system of faith is the restraint that Bertha is deficient in, and that this is probably owing to my own tone. These examples have led me to go over the former ground in the course of the present spring; and it has struck me that, if the Divine Being be not the mere abstraction I once supposed, it is consistent to believe that He has a character and will—individuality, in short—so that there might be one single revelation of absolute truth. I have not thoroughly gone through the subject, but I hope to
do so; and when I mark what I can only call a supernatural influence on an individual character, I view it as an evidence in favour of the system that produced it. My exposition of my opinions shocks you; I knew it would. But knowing this, and thinking it possible that an undoubting believer might have influenced Bertha, are you willing to trust your sisters to me?’
‘Let me ask one question—why was this explanation never offered before to those who had more right to decide?’
‘My tenets have seldom been the subject of inquiry. When they have, I have concealed nothing; and twice have thus missed a situation. But these things are usually taken for granted; and I never imagined it my duty to volunteer my religious sentiments, since I never obtruded them. I gave no scandal by objecting to any form of worship, and concerned myself with the moral and intellectual, not the religious being.’
‘Could you reach the moral without the religious?’
‘I should tell you that I have seldom reared a pupil from childhood. Mine have been chiefly from fifteen to eighteen, whose parents required their instruction, not education, from me; and till I came here, I never fully beheld the growth and development of character. I found that whereas all I could do for Phœbe was to give her method and information, leaving alone the higher graces elsewhere derived, with Bertha, my efforts were inadequate to supply any motive for overcoming her natural defects; and I believe that association with a person of my sceptical habit has tended to prevent Phœbe’s religion from influencing her sister.’
‘This is the reason you tell me?’
‘Partly; and likewise because I esteem you very differently from my former employers, and know that your views for your sisters are not like those of the persons with whom I have been accustomed to deal.’
‘You know that I have no power. It rests entirely with my brother and Mr. Crabbe.’