Bride’s face was very sorrowful.
“It seems so sad,” she said softly, “so very, very sad. Oh, I am grieved for Abner. He looks aged and bowed like an old man, yet his faith never fails. He is a lesson to us all. ‘The child of many prayers,’ he calls Saul, and he will not give up hope. But it must be terrible for him to have to sit by and hear the poor young man shouting out all sorts of horrible imprecations and blasphemies in his delirium and pain. No one can tell whether he quite knows what he is saying; but his words are terrible to hear. Widow Curnow has come to help to nurse him, and I hear almost more from her than from Abner. I hoped he would have been able to see my cousin Eustace before he went to London; but he has never been enough himself, and all excitement has to be avoided. I believe Eustace has the most influence upon him of any person in the world. He has won his affection, and I fear poor Saul knows more of hatred than of love towards the world at large.”
“He has had a very sad life,” said the clergyman sorrowfully, “a life of spiritual revolt against the very conditions of his existence, as well as a mental and physical revolt against the wrongs of a world which can never be set truly right, save by the advent of One to whom in their blindness these would-be reformers never look for guidance, still less join in the cry for Him to appear and take the reins of government Himself. It is sorrowful to think of—that the very men most forward in the struggle to do justice to their fellow-men, are often the most careless about giving God His dues. They will render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, but will they render to God the things that are God’s? How often, as one hears them speak or reads the words they are speaking to the nation, does one say in one’s heart, ‘Lord, open their eyes so that they may see!’ for philanthropy alone will never raise or purify the world; it must be joined with a living faith in a living God, and the first love and service of our hearts must belong to God; the second, given to our neighbours.”
Bride looked with a sudden questioning wistfulness into the clergyman’s face.
“Mr. St. Aubyn, do you not think that a man who loves mankind with a true and unselfish love must somewhere in the depths of his heart have a love for God also, even though he may not know it? Is not love in its essence Divine? and can there be a true and pure love that does not in some sort own allegiance to God?”
Mr. St. Aubyn’s face was serious and thoughtful.
“Pure and true love is indeed Divine in its essence; but there is a carnal and earthly love too, which is but a travesty of God-given love, and burns to its own destruction. I think man often confuses these two loves, and sometimes calls the lower one the higher. Perhaps no eye but God’s can really distinguish altogether the gold and the dross, but we can sometimes judge the tree by its fruit. How often do we see evil fruit springing from a tree which we have thought to be good! We are deceived sometimes, but our Heavenly Father never!”
“Yes! I think I know what you mean. I have seen something of that, as in poor Saul’s case. The fruit is a sorrowful crop, and yet he means nobly and well, I am sure. But there is no love of God in his heart; and yet I sometimes wonder whether perhaps the love for man does not come first with some: ‘If he loves not his brother whom he hath seen, how shall he love God whom he hath not seen?’ There are words very like that somewhere.”
“True, God’s love is so beautiful and infinite, and His patience with His erring children so inexhaustible, that He will do everything in His power to lead their hearts to Him. We are taught and entreated throughout the Bible to seek first the kingdom of heaven; to give the whole of our strength, and mind, and heart, and soul to God in loving submission; to be living members of His Body first, and then members one of another; but as though He would make provision for the weakness and frailty of the flesh, and the infirmity and lack of faith in human nature, we find here and there just such loving touches as show us that our Father will lead us to Himself by every possible means; that love for our brethren shall be a stepping-stone, if used aright, towards that higher and holier love; though perhaps the truer meaning of the words is to teach us that no love for God can be really pure and sincere if it does not carry with it love for our brethren too. The greater must embrace the less; and a man cannot truly love God who is in bitterness with the brethren.”
They rode along in silence for a time then, each thinking deeply. Mr. St. Aubyn was the first to speak.