The Love That Prevailed

by Frank Frankfort Moore

But now while he sat up in the early sunshine that streamed through his window he felt himself free to think of her; and the more he thought of her the more he wondered how he could ever have been led to believe what he had already embodied in a book respecting the advantages of celibacy for the clergy. A clergyman should not only have a knowledge of God; a knowledge of man was essential to success in his calling; and a knowledge of man meant a wide sympathy with men, and this he now felt could only be acquired by one who had a home of his own. The influence of the home and its associations could not but be the greatest to which a man was subject. The ties that bind a man to his home were those which bind him to his fellow-men. The res angusta domi, which some foolish persons regarded as detrimental to a man's best work, were, he was now convinced, the very incidents which enabled him to do good work, for they enabled him to sympathise with his fellows.

Theologians do not, any more than other people, feel grateful to those who have shown them to be in the wrong; but Wesley had nothing but the kindliest feelings for Nelly Polwhele for having unwittingly led him to see that the train of reasoning which he had pursued in his book was founded upon an assumption which was in itself the result of an immature and impersonal experience of any form of life except the Academic, and surely such a question as he had discussed should be looked at from every other standpoint than the Academic.

Most certainly he was now led to think of the question from very different standpoints. He allowed his thoughts to wander to the girl herself. He thought of her quite apart from all womankind. He had never met any young woman who seemed to possess all the charms which endear a woman to a man. She was bright as a young woman should be, she was thoughtful for the needs of all who were about her, she had shown herself ready to submit to the guidance of one who was older and more experienced than herself. He could not forget how she had promised him never again to enter the playhouse which had so fascinated her. Oh, she was the most gracious creature that lived—the sweetest, the tenderest, and surely she must prove the most devoted!

So his imagination carried him away; and then suddenly he found himself face to face with that phrase of Mr. Hartwell's “Absurdity could go no further.”

And then, of course, he began to repeat all the questions which he had put to himself when he had started on his investigations into the matter. Once more he said:

“Where lies the source of all absurdities?”

And equally as a matter of course he was once again led in the direction that his thoughts had taken before until he found himself enquiring if the world held another so sweet and gracious and sympathetic.

It was not until he was led once more to his starting-point that he began to feel as he had never done before for those of his fellow-men who allowed themselves to be carried away by dwelling on the simplest of the questions which engrossed him.

“'Tis a repetition of yesterday morning,” said he. “We set out pleasantly enough in the mist, and after an hour's profitless wandering we found ourselves at the point whence we had started—ay, and the young woman was waiting for us there in person.”

Was that morning's wandering to be typical of his life? he wondered. Was he to be ever straying along a misty coast, and evermore to be finding himself at the point whence he had started, with Nelly Polwhele waiting for him there?