The Vicar of Wrexhill

by Frances Milton Trollope

Rosalind, greatly affected by the changed voice and manner, pressed to her lips the emaciated hand held out to her, and retired.

Rosalind did indeed require the refreshment of air and exercise, from which she had almost wholly debarred herself for above a week; and such refreshment will certainly do more towards restoring the exhausted strength, both to body and mind, than any other remedy which can be devised. Yet, though it acts well, and almost infallibly, on the system, the benefit does not at once reach the consciousness of the weary watcher. Rosalind, as she slowly dragged her languid steps along, felt none of the pleasurable effects of the sweet breeze that blew in her face, for she was not aware of it. Her heart and soul were still in the chamber of the dying Henrietta; and though greatly too well taught to believe that a few feverish moments of changed opinions can put the passing spirit into a state of fitness for heaven, still she clung to the hope of hearing the unhappy girl avow better thoughts and feelings than those which had so long brooded over her misguided spirit. Fully occupied with these meditations, Rosalind walked for an hour, almost mechanically, through the shrubberies, unmindful of the sweet voice of nature that greeted her in the songs of birds and in the breath of flowers, and thinking only of what she might say or do to make the light of truth send one cheering ray upon the last hours of her unhappy friend.

When she re-entered the house, her maid, who was watching for her, said that Miss Cartwright had rung her bell, and requested to know when she returned.

Blaming herself for her long absence, Rosalind hastened to the sick room, and found Henrietta seated upright in her bed, with rather more animation and brightness in her eyes than she wished to see, for she thought it betokened fever; but her voice and manner were gentle and composed.

"Your words have not fallen to the ground, my most kind Rosalind," said she; "and if it be possible, during the short period that remains for me to live, that I should attain a clearer knowledge of what I am than I have hitherto possessed, I shall welcome it most gladly. But of all the attributes with which the beautiful idea that you call God is invested, the only one that I conceive it possible for mortals to share with Him, is Truth. Power, alas! we have none—of knowledge very little, of wisdom less—and as to perfect goodness, perfect benevolence, we are not framed to feel it. But Truth, clear pure, beautiful, and bright, we can know and we can feel! It can make a part of us, even as it makes a part of Him; and by this only, as it seems to me, can we approach Him, touch Him, and, as it were be part of Him. For truth in a mortal, Rosalind, if it exist at all, is perfect as in a God. It is therefore, my dear friend, that though I feel, ay, and have always felt, that there may be an existing cause, endowed with will, productive of all the wonders of creation—and though this wondrous existence, if it be! deserves all worship—and though I (more sinned against than sinning) have offered none, yet still I feel that I may be forgiven. If I have kept far off from him my worship and my thoughts, at least I never have approached him with falsehood on my tongue or in my heart; and, to my judgment, this is the only crime relating to our intercourse with God at which we need to tremble. If such a Being be, can our blundering theories so touch his greatness that he should deign to frown upon us for them? No, no, no! We cannot know Him; and those who guess the nearest, can guess but very darkly. But truth and falsehood are as much within the compass of man's nature as of God's, and therefore are they, as concerning Him, the only virtue and the only sin."

Henrietta spoke these words with her eyes closed, slowly and deliberately, as if her mind, like a cloud that

——"Turns forth its silver lining to the night,"

sought in the midst of darkness to show the faint gleam within.

But every word she uttered made Rosalind more deeply feel the necessity of letting her hear the truths of religion from some one who had made its laws the study of a holy life. She longed that she should hear with more authority than she could lend to it, the voice of God himself, as revealed to man in records enduring as the world;—but where was she to seek such a one? As poor Henrietta had said, the name of a minister could to her suggest no other image than that of her father;—and from him she ever seemed to turn with horror.

Yet still Rosalind could not endure to abandon the hope that such a one might be found, and only waited till Henrietta would promise to see him before she took measures for the purpose. In answer to this request, the dying girl replied "But my permission is not all that is necessary, dearest Rosalind. What would my father say if you were fortunate enough to obtain for me a visit from such a one as you describe? He would not bear it. He would not admit his approach. I know he would not."