The Christianity of Drift was old-fashioned, and reflected the Founder. No distractions rose between Joan and the story. She took it at first hand, escaping thus from those petty follies and fooleries which blight and fog the real issues today. She sucked her new faith pure. A noble rule of conduct lay before her; she dimly discerned something of its force; and unselfishness appeared in her, proving that she had read aright. As for the dogma, she opened her arms to that very readily because it was beautiful and promised so much. Faith's votaries never turn critical eyes upon the foundations of her gorgeous fabric; their sight is fixed aloft on the rainbow towers and pinnacles, upon the golden fanes. And yet this man-born structure of theology, with aisles and pillars fretting and crumbling under the hand of reason, needs such eternal propping, restoring and repairing, that priestly tinkers, masons, hod-carriers are solely occupied with it. They grapple and fight for the poor shadows of dogma by which they live, and, so engaged, the spirit and substance of religion is by them altogether lost. None of the Christian churches will ever be overcrowded with men who possess brain-power worthy the name. Mediocrity and ignorance may starve, but talent and any new nostrum to strangle reason and keep the rot from the fabric will always open their coffers.
Joan truly found the dogma more grateful and comforting than anything else within her experience, and the apparition of a flesh and blood God, who had saved her with His own life's blood before she was born, appeared too beautiful and sufficing to be less than true. Her eyes, shut so long, seemed opening at last. With errors that really signify nothing, she drew to herself great truths that matter much and are vital to all elevated conduct. She thought of other people and looked at them as one wakened from sleep. And, similarly, she looked at Nature. Even her vanished lover had not taught her all. There were truths below the formulae of his worship; there were secrets deeper than his intellectual plummet had ever sounded. Without understanding it, Joan yet knew that a change had come to pass in material things. Sunshine on the deep sea hid more matters for wonder than John Barron had taught or known. Once only as yet had she caught a glimpse of Nature's beating heart; and that was upon the occasion of her visit to St. Madron's chapel. She was lifted up then for a magic hour; but the lurid end of that day looked clearer afterward than ever the dewy dawn of it. Nature had smiled mutely and dumbly at her sufferings for long months since then. But now added knowledge certainly grew, and from a matrix mightier than the love of Nature or of man, was Joan's new life born. It embraced a new sight, new senses, ambitions, fears and hopes.
Joan went to church at every opportunity. Faith seemed so easy, and soon so necessary. Secret prayer became a real thing to be approached with joy. To own to sins was as satisfactory as casting down a heavy burden at a journey's end; to confess them to God was to know that they were forgiven. There were not many clouds in her religious sky. As Mary's religion was bounded by her own capabilities and set forth against a background of gloom, which never absolutely vanished save in moments of rare exaltation, so Joan's newfound faith took upon itself an aspect of sunshine. Her clouds were made beautiful by the new light; they did not darken it. Mary's gray Cornish mind kept sentiment out of sight. She lived with clear eyes always focusing reality as it appeared to her. Heaven was indeed a pleasanter eternal fact than hell; yet the place of torment existed on Bible authority; and it was idle to suppose it existed for nothing. Grasping eternity as a truth, she occupied herself in strenuous preparation; which preparation took the form of good works and personal self-denial. Joan belonged to an order of emotional creatures widely different. She loved the beautiful for its own sake, kept her face to the sun when it shone, shivered and shut up like a scarlet pimpernel if bad weather was abroad. And now a chastened sunshine, daily growing stronger, shot through the present clouds, painted beauty on their fringes, and lighted the darkness of their recesses so that even the secrets of suffering were fitfully revealed. Joan grasped at new thoughts, the outcome of her new road.
Nature presently seemed of a nobler face, and certain immemorial achievements of man also flashed out in the side-light of the new convictions; as objects, themselves inconsiderable, will suddenly develop unsuspected splendors from change of standpoint in the beholder. The magic of that Christianity, which Joan now received directly from her Bible, wrought and embroidered a new significance into many things. And it worked upon none as upon the old crosses, some perfect still, some ruined as to arm or shaft, some quite worn out and gnawed by time from their original semblance. These dotted her native land. Them she had always loved, but now they appeared marvelously transfigured, and the soul hid in their granite beamed through it. Supposing the true menhirs to be but ruined crosses also, Joan shed on them no scantier affection than upon the less venerable Brito-Celtic records of Christianity. Bid so to do, and prompted also by her inclination, the girl was wont to take walks of some length for her health's sake; and these had an object now. As her dead mother's legends came back to her memory and knit Nature to her new Saviour, so the weather-beaten stones brought Him likewise nearer, marked the goal of precious daily pilgrimages, and filled a sad young life with friends.
Returning from a visit to Tremathick cross, where it stands upon a little mound on the St. Just road, Joan heard a thin and well-known voice before she saw the speaker. It was Mrs. Tregenza, who had walked over to drink tea and satisfy herself on sundry points respecting her stepdaughter.
"Oh, my Guy Faux, Polly!" she said upon arriving, "I'm in a reg'lar take to be here, though I knaws Michael's t'other side the islands an' won't fetch home 'fore marnin'. I've comed 'cause I couldn't keep from it no more. How's her doin', poor tibby lamb, wi' all them piles o' money tu. Not that money did ought to make a differ'nce, but it do, an' that's the truth, an' it edn' no good makin' as though it doan't. What a world, to be sure! An' that letter from Noy? I knaw you was fond of en likewise in your time. The sadness of it! Just think o' that mariner comin' home 'pon top o' this mishap."
Mary winced and answered coldly that the world was full of mishaps and of sadness.
"The man must face sorrer same as what us all have got to, Mrs. Tregenza. Some gets more, some gets less, as the sparks fly up'ard. Joe Noy's got religion tu."
Mary spoke the last words with some bitterness, which she noted too late and set against herself for a sin.
"Oh, my dear sawl," said Mrs. Tregenza, looking round nervously, as though she feared the shadow of her husband might be listening. "Luke Gosp'ling's a mighty uncomfortable business, though I lay Tregenza'd most kill me if he heard the word. 'Tedn' stomachable to all, an' I doubts whether 'twill be a chain strong enough to hold Joe Noy, when he comes back to find this coil. 'Tis a kicklish business an' I wish 'twas awver. Joe's a fiery feller when he reckons he's wronged; an' there ban't no balm to this hurt in Gosp'ling, take it as you will. I tell you, in your ear awnly, that Luke Gosp'lers graw ferocious like along o' the wickedness o' the airth. Take Michael, as walks wi' the Lard, same as Moses done; an' the more he do, the ferociouser he do get. Religion! He stinks o' religion worse than ever Newlyn stinks o' feesh; he goes in fear o' God to his marrow; an' yet 'tis uncomfortable, now an' then, to live wi' such a righteous member. Theer's a sourness along of it. Luke Gosp'ling doan't soften the heart of en."