"'He instructs my parish admirably,' said Dr. Barlow, 'but his own little family he can not manage. His wife is continually reproaching him, that though he may know the way to heaven, he does not know how to push his way in the world. His daughter is the finest lady in the parish, and outdoes them all, not only in the extremity, but the immodesty of the fashion. It is her mother's great ambition that she should excel the Miss Stanleys and my daughters in music, while her good father's linen betrays sad marks of negligence. I once ventured to tell Mrs. Jackson that there was only one reason which could excuse the education she had given her daughter, which was that I presumed she intended to qualify her for getting her bread; and that if she would correct the improprieties of the girl's dress, and get her instructed in useful knowledge, I would look out for a good situation for her. This roused her indignation. She refused my offer with scorn, saying, that when she asked my charity, she would take my advice; and desired that I would remember that one clergyman's daughter was as good as another. I told her that there was indeed a sense in which one clergyman was as good as another, because the profession dignified the lowest of the order, if, like her husband, he was a credit to that order. Yet still there were gradations in the church as well as in the state. But between the wives and daughters of the higher and lower clergy, there were the same distinction which riches and poverty have established between those of the higher and lower orders of the laity; and that rank and independence in the one case, confer the same outward superiority with rank and independence in the other."
CHAPTER XVI.
Among the visitors at Stanley Grove, there was a family of ladies, who, though not particularly brilliant, were singularly engaging from their modesty, gentleness, and good sense. One day when they had just left us, Mr. Stanley obliged me with the following little relation: Mrs. Stanley and Lucilla only being present.
"Lady Aston has been a widow almost seven years. On the death of Sir George, she retired into this neighborhood with her daughters, the eldest of whom is about the age of Lucilla. She herself had had a pious but a very narrow education. Her excessive grief for the loss of her husband augmented her natural love of retirement which she cultivated, not to the purpose of improvement, but to the indulgence of melancholy. Soon after she settled here, we heard how much good she did, and in how exemplary a manner she lived, before we saw her. She was not very easy of access even to us; and after we had made our way to her, we were the only visitors she admitted for a long time. We soon learned to admire her deadness to the world, and her unaffected humility. Our esteem for her increased with our closer intercourse, which however enabled us also to observe some considerable mistakes in her judgment, especially in the mode in which she was training up her daughters. These errors we regretted, and with all possible tenderness ventured to point out to her. The girls were the prettiest demure little nuns you ever saw, mute and timid, cheerless and inactive, but kind, good, and gentle.
"Their pious mother, who was naturally of a fearful and doubting mind, had had this pensive turn increased by several early domestic losses, which, even previous to Sir George's death, had contributed to fix something of a too tender and hopeless melancholy on her whole character. There are two refuges for the afflicted; two diametrically opposite ways of getting out of sorrow—religion and the world. Lady Aston had wisely chosen the former. But her scrupulous spirit had made the narrow way narrower than religion required. She read the Scriptures diligently, and she prayed over them devoutly; but she had no judicious friend to direct her in these important studies. As your Mrs. Ranby attended only to the doctrines, and our friend Lady Belfield trusted indefinitely to the promises, so poor Lady Aston's broken spirit was too exclusively carried to dwell on the threatenings; together with the rigid performance of those duties which she earnestly hoped might enable her to escape them. This round of duty, of watchfulness, and prayer, she invariably performed with almost the sanctity of an apostle, but with a little too much of the scrupulosity of an ascetic. While too many were rejoicing with unfounded confidence in those animating passages of Scripture, which the whole tenor of their lives demonstrates not to belong to them, she trembled at those denunciations which she could not fairly apply to herself. And the promises from which she might have derived reasonable consolation, she overlooked as designed for others.
"Her piety, though sincere, was a little tinctured with superstition. If any petty strictness was omitted, she tormented herself with causeless remorse. If any little rule was broken, she repaired the failure with treble diligence the following day; and labored to retrieve her perplexed accounts with the comfortless anxiety of a person who is working out a heavy debt. I endeavored to convince her, that an inferior duty which clashed with one of a higher order, might be safely postponed at least, if not omitted.
"A diary has been found useful to many pious Christians, as a record of their sins, and of their mercies. But this poor lady spent so much time in weighing the offenses of one day against those of another, that before the scruple was settled, the time for action was past. She brought herself into so much perplexity by reading over this journal of her infirmities, that her difficulties were augmented by the very means she had employed to remove them; and her conscience was disturbed by the method she had taken to quiet it. This plan, however, though distressing to a troubled mind, is wholesome to one of a contrary cast.
"My family, as you have seen, are rather exact in the distribution of their time, but we do not distress ourselves at interruptions which are unavoidable: but her arrangements were carried on with a rigor which made her consider the smallest deviation as a sin that required severe repentance. Her alms were expiations, her self-denials penances.
"She was rather a disciple of the mortified Baptist, than of the merciful Redeemer. Her devotions were sincere but discouraging. They consisted much in contrition, but little in praise; much in sorrow for sin, but little in hope of its pardon. She did not sufficiently cast her care and confidence on the great propitiation. She firmly believed all that her Saviour had done and suffered, but she had not the comfort of practically appropriating the sacrifice. While she was painfully working out her salvation with fear and trembling, she indulged the most unfounded apprehensions of the divine displeasure. At Aston Hall the Almighty was literally feared, but he was not glorified. It was the obedience of a slave, and not the reverential affection of a child.