“Jeanie Wilson!—a Christian! Reuben, Reuben, how have you fallen!” burst angrily, almost fiercely, from Simeon; “but it is folly to be surprised—I knew it would be so.”
“Indeed! wonderfully clear-sighted as you were then, if you consider such a union humiliation, it would have been more brotherly, perhaps, to have warned me of the precipice on which I stood,” answered Reuben, sarcastically.
“Yes! you gave me so fair an opportunity to act a brother’s part; never seeking me, or permitting me to seek you, for weeks together; herding with strangers alone—following them alike in the store and in the mart—loving what they love, doing as they do—and, like them, scorning, despising, and persecuting that holy people who once called you son—forgetting your birthright, your sainted heritage—throwing dishonour on the dead as on the living, to link yourself with those who assuredly will, if they do not now, despise you. Shame, foul shame upon you!”
“Have you done?” calmly inquired Reuben, though the red spot was on his cheek. “It is something for the elder to be bearded thus by the younger. Yet be it so. I have done nothing for which to feel shame—nothing to dishonour those with whom I am related. If they feel themselves dishonoured, let them leave me; I can meet the world alone.”
“Aye, so far alone, that you will rejoice that others have cast aside the chains of nature, and given you freedom to follow your own apostate path unquestioned and unrebuked.”
“Peace, I command you!” exclaimed the widow, with a tone and gesture of authority which awed Simeon into silence, and checked the wrathful reply on Reuben’s lips. “My sons, profane not the Sabbath of your God with this wild and wicked contention. Simeon, however you may lament what Reuben has disclosed, it is not your part to forget he is your brother—yes, an elder brother—still.”
“I will own no apostate for my brother!” muttered the still irritated young man. “Others may regard him as they list; if he have given up his faith, I will not call him brother.”
“I have neither the will nor occasion to forswear my faith,” replied Reuben calmly. “Mr. Wilson has made no condition in giving me his daughter, except that she may follow her own faith, which I were indeed prejudiced and foolish to deny. He believes as I do; to believe in God is enough—all religions are the same before Him.”
“That is to say, he is, like yourself, of no religion at all,” rejoined Simeon, bitterly. “Better he had been prejudiced, rigid, even despising us as others do; then this misfortune would not have befallen us.”
“Is it a misfortune to you, mother? Leah—Ruth—Joseph, will you all refuse to love my wife? You will not, cannot, when you see and know her.”