“Oh, Mr. Gwynne, you that be a parson, a man of God, come and help us.”
Harold looked round, and saw he had to face the woe that no worldly comfort or counsel can lighten;—that he had entered into the awful presence of the Power, which, stripping man of all his earthly pomp, wisdom, and strength, leaves him poor, weak, and naked before his God.
The proud, the moral, the learned Harold Gwynne, stood dumb before the mystery of Death. It was too mighty for him. He looked on the dead boy, and on the living father; then cast his eyes down to the ground, and muttered within himself, “What should I do here?”
“Read to him—pray with him,” whispered Olive. “Speak to him of God—of heaven—of immortality.”
“God—heaven—immortality,” echoed Harold, vacantly, but he never stirred.
“They say that this man has been a great sinner, and an unbeliever. Oh, tell him that he cannot deceive himself now. Death knells into his ear that there is a God—there is a hereafter. Mr. Gwynne, oh tell him that, at a time like this, there is no comfort, no hope, save in God and in His Word.”
Olive had spoken thus in the excitement of the moment; then recovering herself, she asked pardon for a speech so bold, as if she would fain teach the clergyman his duty.
“My duty—yes, I must do my duty,” muttered Harold Gwynne. And with his hard-set face—the face he wore in the pulpit—he went up to the father of the dead child, and said something about “patience,” “submission to the decrees of Providence,” and “all trials being sent for good, and by the will of God.”
“Dun ye talk to me of God? I know nought about him, parson—ye never learned me.”
Harold's rigid mouth quivered visibly, but he made no direct answer, only saying, in the same formal tone, “You go to church—at least, you used to go—you have heard there about 'God in his judgments remembering mercy.'”