“Well, I knew, for I had heard talk of it at the time, that Dr Bates was one of them that gave up their livings when the Act of Uniformity came in, so that he was regarded as no better than a conventicler; and I wondered how father should like to be spoke to by Dr Bates any more than by Farmer Ingham, because to him they would both be laymen alike. But at that time I was learning to tarry the Lord’s leisure—ah! that’s a grand word, Phoebe! For His leisure runs side by side with our profit, and He’ll be at leisure to attend to you the minute that you really need attending to. So I waited quietly to see what would come. Dr Bates came, and he proved to be no common hedge-preacher, but a learned man that had been to the University, and had Greek and Hebrew pat at his tongue’s end. I could see that it was pleasant to father to talk with such a man; and maybe he took to him the rather because he had the look of one that had known sorrow. When a man is suffering, he will converse more readily with a fellow-sufferer than with a hale man. So they talked away of their young days, when they were at school and college, and father was much pleased, as I could see, to find that Dr Bates and he were of the same college, though not there at the same time: and a deal they had to say about this and that man, that both knew, but of course all strangers to me. I thought I had never seen Father seem to talk with the like interest and pleasure since my mother’s death.
“But time went on, and their talk, and not a word from Dr Bates of the fashion I desired. I went to bed somewhat heavy. The next morning, however, as I was sat at my sewing by the parlour window—which was open, the weather being very sultry—came Dr Bates and father, and stood just beyond the window. The horse was then saddling for Dr Bates to be gone. All at once, they standing silent a moment, he laid his hand on father’s shoulder, and saith very softly, ‘“I will hearken what the Lord God will say concerning me.”’ Father turns and stares at him, as started. But he goes on, and saith, ‘“For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid Me and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, and will heal him; I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners. I create the fruit of the lips. Peace, peace to him that is far off”’—he said it twice—‘“peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord, and I will heal him.”’ He did not add one word, but went and mounted his horse, and when he had bid farewell to all else, just as he was turning away from the door, he calls out, in a cheerful voice, ‘Good morning, Brother Jennings.’ Then, as it were, Father seemed to awake, and he runs after, and puts his hand in Dr Bates’s, who drew bridle, and for a minute they were busy in earnest discourse. Then they clasped hands again, and father saith, ‘God bless you!’ and away rode Dr Bates. But after that Father was different. He said to me—it was some weeks later—‘Dolly, if it please God, I shall never speak another word against the men that turned out in Sixty-Two. They may have made blunders, but some at least of them were holy men of God, for all that.’”
“I was always sorry for them,” said Phoebe. “And Father said so too.”
“True, my dear. Yet ’tis not well we should forget that the parsons were turned out the first, and the conventiclers afterward. There were faults on both sides.”
“But, Mrs Dolly, why can’t good men agree?”
“Ah, child! ‘They shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion.’ No sooner. Thank God that He looketh on the heart. I believe there may be two men in arms against each other, bitter opposers of each other, and yet each of them acting with a single eye to the honour of their Lord. He knows it, and He only, now. But how sorry they will be for their hard thoughts and speeches when they come to understand each other in the clear light of Heaven!”
“It always seems to me,” said Phoebe, diffidently, “that there are a great many things we shall be sorry for then. But can anybody be sorry in Heaven?”
Mrs Dorothy smiled. “We know very little about Heaven, my dear. Less than Madam’s parrot or Mrs Clarissa’s dog understands about anyone writing a letter.”
“Dogs do understand a great deal,” remarked Phoebe. “Our Flossie did.”
“My dear, I have learned no end of lessons from dogs. I only wish we Christians minded the word of our Master half as well as they do theirs. I wish men would take pattern from them, instead of starving and kicking them, or tormenting them with a view to win knowledge. We may be the higher creatures, but we are far from being the better. You may take note, too, that your dog will often resist an unpleasant thing—a dose of medicine, say—just because he does not understand why you want to give it to him, and does not know the worse thing that would otherwise befall him. Didst thou never serve thy Master like that, dear?”