Sophy’s next visitor came up with a manly tread, and she almost feared that she had made herself ill enough for the doctor; but it was Mr. Ferrars, with a kind face of pitying sympathy.
‘May I come to wish my godchild good-bye?’ he said.
Sophy did not speak, and he looked compassionately at the prone dejection of the whole figure, and the pale, sallow face, so piteously mournful. He took her hand, and began to tell her of the godfather’s present, that he had brought her—a little book of devotions intended for the time when she should be confirmed. Sophy uttered a feeble ‘thank you,’ but a hopeless one.
‘Ah! you are feeling as if nothing would do you any good,’ said Mr. Ferrars.
‘Papa says so!’ she answered.
‘Not quite,’ said Mr. Ferrars. ‘He knows that your low spirits are the effect of temperament and health, and that you are not able to prevent yourself from feeling unhappy and aggrieved. And perhaps you reckoned on too much sensible effect from Church ordinances. Now joy, help, all these blessings are seldom revealed to our consciousness, but are matters of faith; and you must be content to work on in faith in the dark, before you feel comfort. I cannot but hope that if you will struggle, even when you are hurt and annoyed, to avoid the expression of vexation, the morbid temper will wear out, and you will both be tempted and suffer less, as you grow older. And, Sophy—forgive me for asking—do you pray in this unhappy state?’
‘I cannot. It is not true.’
‘Make it true. Take some verse of a Psalm. Shall I mark you some? Repeat them, even if you seem to yourself not to feel them. There is a holy power that will work on you at last; and when you can truly pray, the dark hour will pass.’
‘Mark them,’ said Sophy.
There was some space, while she gave him the book, and he showed her the verses. Then he rose to go.