They had, almost unconsciously, walked, twice round the square, and had now the third time reached the house. He went in with her and saw his patient, then took his leave to go home to his Greek Testament—for the remainder of the evening if he might. Except when some particular case required attention, he never went on-trying to teach with his soul weary. He would carry material aid or social comfort, but would not teach. His soul must be shining—with faith or hope or love or repentance or compassion, when he unveiled it. "No man," he would say, "will be lost because I do not this or that; but if I do the unfitting thing, I may block his way for him, and retard his redemption." He would not presume beyond what was given him—as if God were letting things go wrong, and he must come in to prevent them! He would not set blunted or ill tempered tools to the finest work of the universe!
CHAPTER XLIX.
AN ARRANGEMENT.
Hester had not yet gone to see Miss Dasomma because of the small-pox.
Second causes are God's as much as first, and Christ made use of them as his father's way. It were a sad world indeed if God's presence were only interference, that is, miracle. The roundabout common ways of things are just as much his as the straight, miraculous ones—I incline to think more his, in the sense that they are plainly the ways he prefers. In all things that are, he is—present even in the evil we bring into the world, to foil it and bring good out of it. We are always disbelieving in him because things do not go as we intend and desire them to go. We forget that God has larger ends, even for us, than we can see, so his plans do not fit ours. If God were not only to hear our prayers, as he does ever and always, but to answer them as we want them answered, he would not be God our Saviour, but the ministering genius of our destruction.
But now Hester thought she might visit her friend. She had much to say to her and ask of her. First she told her of herself and lord Gartley. Miss Dasomma threw her arms about her, and broke into a flood of congratulation. Hester looked a little surprised, and was indeed a little annoyed at the vehemence of her pleasure. Miss Dasomma hastened to excuse herself.
"My dear," she said, "the more I saw of that man, the more I thought and the more I heard about him, his ways, and his surroundings, the more I marvelled you should ever have taken him for other than the most wordly, shallow, stunted creature. It was the very impossibility of your understanding the mode of being of such a man that made it possible for him to gain on you. Believe me, if you had married him, you would have been sick of him—forgive the vulgar phrase—yes, and hopeless of him, in six weeks."
"There was more and better in him than you imagine," returned Hester, hurt that her friend should think so badly of the man she loved, but by no means sure that she was wrong.
"That may be," answered her friend; "but I am certain also that if you had married him, you would have done him no good."