And it is a fact that, a week after, Aunt Maria spent a day with Eva in the balmiest state of grace, and made no allusion whatever to the conversation above cited. Nothing operates so healthfully on such moral constitutions as a good dose of certainty.
[CHAPTER XLVIII.]
THE PEARL CROSS.
Every thoughtful person who exercises the least supervision over what goes on within, is conscious of living two distinct lives—the outward and the inward.
The external life is positive, visible, definable; easily made the subject of conversation. The inner life is shy, retiring, most difficult to be expressed in words, often inexplicable, even to the subject of it, yet no less a positive reality than the outward.
We have not succeeded in the picture of our Eva unless we have shown her to have one of those sensitive moral organizations, whose nature it is to reflect deeply, to feel intensely, and to aspire after a high moral ideal.
If we do not mistake the age we live in, the perplexities and anxieties of such natures form a very large item in our modern life.
It is said that the Christian religion is losing its hold on society. On the contrary, we believe there never was a time when faith in Christianity was so deep and all-pervading, and when it was working in so many minds as a disturbing force.
The main thing which is now perplexing modern society, is the effort which is making to reduce the teachings of the New Testament to actual practice in life and to regulate society by them. There is no skepticism as to the ends sought by Jesus in human life. Nobody doubts that love is the fulfilling of the law, and that to do as we would be done by, applied universally, would bring back the golden age, if ever such ages were.