The Love That Prevailed

by Frank Frankfort Moore

CHAPTER XX

The sunlight was in his room when he awoke. He had a sense of refreshment. A weight seemed lifted off his heart. He remembered how he had awakened the previous morning in the same bed with a feeling of perplexity. He had found it impossible to make up his mind as to the course he should pursue in regard to Pritchard. He had been fearful of being led to rebuke a man who might have been made the means of leading even one sinner to repentance. He asked himself if he differed as much from that man as the average churchman did from himself in his methods. He knew how grievous he regarded the rebukes which he had received from excellent clergymen who looked on his field preaching with the sternest disapproval; and who then was he that he should presume to rebuke a man who had been led by his zeal beyond what he, Wesley, thought to be the bounds of propriety?

He had felt great perplexity on awakening on that Sunday morning; but he had been given help to see his way clearly on that morning of mist, and now he felt greatly at ease. He had nothing to reproach himself with.

He recalled all the events of the day before—all that his eyes had seen—all that his ears had heard; and now that he had no further need to think about Pritchard, it was surprising how much he had to recall that had little to do with that man. He himself felt somewhat surprised that above all that had been said to him during the day the words that he should dwell longest upon were a few words that had fallen from Mr. Hartwell. He had hinted to Mr. Hartwell that John Bennet had acted so grossly in regard to him, through a mad jealousy; and Mr. Hartwell, hearing this, had lifted up his hands in amazement, and said:

“Absurdity could go no further!”

When Hartwell said those words Wesley had not quite grasped their full import; his attention had been too fully occupied with the further extravagance which he had witnessed on the part of Pritchard. But now that his mind was at ease he recalled the words, and he had sufficient selfpossession to ask himself if his host considered that the absurdity was to be found in Bennet's fancying that he, Wesley, was his rival. If so, was the absurdity to be found in the fancy that such a young woman could think of him, Wesley, in the light of a lover; or that he should think of the young woman as a possible wife?

He could not deny that the thought of Nelly Polwhele as his constant companion had more than once come to him when he was oppressed with a sense of his loneliness; and he knew that when he had got Mr. Hartwell's letter calling him back to Porthawn he had felt that it might be that there was what some men called Fate, but what he preferred to call the Hand of God, in this matter. Was he being led back to have an opportunity of seeing her again, and of learning truly if the regard which he thought he felt for her was to become the love that sanctified the marriage of a man with a woman?

Well, he had returned to her, and he had seen (as he fancied) her face alight with the happiness of his return. For an hour he had thought of the gracious possibility of being able to witness such an expression upon her face any time that he came from a distant preaching. The thought was a delight to him. Home—coming home! He had no home; and surely, he felt, the longing for a home and a face to welcome him at the door was the most natural—the most commendable—that a man could have. And surely such a longing was not inconsistent with his devotion to the work which he believed it was laid upon him to do while his life lasted.

He had seen her and talked with her for a short time, and felt refreshed by being under the influence of her freshness. But then he had been forced to banish her from his mind in order to give all his attention to the grave matter which had brought him back to this place. He had walked by her side through the mist the next day, and never once had he allowed the thought of her to turn his eyes away from the purpose which had called him forth into the mist of the morning. He thought of her thoughtfulness in the matter of the mariner's compass with gratitude. That was all. His heart was full of his work; there was no room in it for anything else.