“I don’t see that a woman need take any side unless she likes,” quoth my Aunt Kezia. “I can bake as tasty a pie, and put on as neat a patch, whether I talk of Prince Charles or the Young Pretender. And patches and pies are my business: the Prince isn’t. I reckon the Lord will manage to see that every one gets his rights, without Kezia Courtenay running up to help Him.”
“But somebody has it to do, Aunt.”
“Let them do it, then. I’m glad I’m not somebody.”
“But, Aunt Kezia, don’t you want people to have their rights?”
“Depends on what their rights are, child. Some of us would be very sadly off if we got them. I should not like my rights, I know.”
“Ah, you mean your deserts, Aunt,” said Hatty. “But rights are not just the same thing, are they?”
“Let us look it in the face, girls, if you wish,” saith my Aunt Kezia. “I hate seeing folks by side-face. If you want to see anybody, or understand anything, look right in its face. What are rights? They are not always deserts,—you are right there, Hatty,—for none of us hath any rights as regards God. Rights concern ourselves and our fellow-men. I take it, every man hath a right to what he earns, and to what is given him,—whether God or man gave it to him,—so long as he that gave had the right over what he gave. Now, as to this question, it seems to me all lies in a nut-shell. If King James be truly the son of the old King (which I cannot doubt), then God gave him the crown of England, of which no man can possibly have any right to deprive him. Only God can do that. Then comes the next question, Has God done that? Time must answer. Without a revelation from Heaven, we cannot find it out any other way.”
“But until we do find it out, where are we to stand?”
“Keep to your last orders till you get fresh ones. A servant will make sad blunders who goes contrary to orders, just because he fancies that his master may have changed his mind.”
I see that for all practical purposes my Aunt Kezia agrees with Annas. And indeed what they say sounds but reasonable.