“Reginald,” he added, when they had closed the door, “I have a clue; depend upon it, he won't be much the worse, poor fellow. But the doctor knows him well, I am sure.”
Reginald stole away after dinner to sit with Louis, and to endeavor to persuade him to disclose all his suspicions, but all he could obtain was a kind of half-promise to clear it up, after he had seen how the matter would end; and the subject caused him so much distress, that Reginald at length left it alone.
“Sit down by my side, dear Reginald,” said Louis, “and tell me again that you forgive me. I cannot think how I could be so unkind to you as I have been lately, when you were so anxious about me. I have been ungrateful to every body.”
“Don't make yourself miserable,” said Reginald, as gayly as he could. “I know I am hasty and cross, and don't go the right way to help you; but you had spoiled me by being so very gentle before, and I didn't understand your having any spirit.”
“It was a very wrong spirit,” replied Louis; “the fact is, Reginald, I have not been serving God lately, though at first I did not know it myself. I thought I did a great many things when I came back to school, because it would glorify God; when, I really believe now, the reason was—to be praised for it. Every one seemed to think so much of me, and that every thing I did was right. I have wished so many times lately, that all the trouble of last half-year might come again if I should be so happy. But, Reginald, when the boys would not speak to me, then I knew by my angry feelings that I only cared for myself; and I saw that I had not been serving God, and I became afraid to pray. Sometimes so strangely, when I knew I was in the wrong, and that I ought to pray for help to be better, yet I wanted to look grand, and to show I didn't care, and I never used the time I had, and that's very little here, Reginald. I have been thinking of myself almost ever since I came back—I have been thinking of glorifying myself!” He paused, and then added, in a lower tone, “I fancied I was not selfish, but now I know I am!”
When Reginald went away, Louis had long and quiet time to trace the reason of his sad falling away, and to make his peace with Him whose great name he had so dishonored. Earnestly, humbly, and sorrowfully did he confess his faults. How bowed to the earth he felt, in the consciousness of his utter impotence! He remembered how confident he had been in his good name; and now he became aware, in this silent self-examination, how mixed his motives had been, how full of vanity and vain-glory he had been, how careless in waiting for “more grace,” how little he had thought of pressing forward, how wanting he had been in that single heart that thought only of doing the work committed to him regardless of the approbation of men—that only desired to know what was right in order fearlessly to follow it; and unutterable were the tearful desires of his heart that he might be strengthened for the time to come to walk more worthy of the vocation wherewith he was called.
Chapter XXIV.
“I will heal their backslidings, I will love them freely; for mine anger is turned away from him. Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols?”—Hosea xiv. 4, 8.
“I will hear what God the Lord will speak: for He will speak peace to His people, and to His saints, but let them not turn again to folly.”—Psalm lxxxv. 8.