“All things are by comparison,” said Charles, rather confused when he recollected what he had said about his sister. “I do not mean that she never flags: I was only speaking of her in comparison with myself, and with her former self.”
“Nothing but religious principle could enable her to do this,” said Monteath. “This is the secret of her superiority, is it not? Without this her trials would have produced depression, instead of renewed energy.”
“Certainly,” replied Charles. “There are many who pity her under her weight of cares, and who are grieved when they think that she is an orphan, and that she has more arduous duties to perform than many can get through under the guidance and with the assistance of parents or experienced friends. But Jane knows that she is guided, though invisibly, by the best and wisest of Parents, and the Bible is to her as His manifest presence: she has recourse to it on all occasions of difficulty, and can never want confidence or feel forlorn, while such a director is at hand.”
“Those whose reason is matured enough, and whose religious affections are cultivated enough to attach their heart and soul to such a guide, may well do without other support,” said Monteath. “‘The integrity of the upright shall guide them!’ But there are few of your sister’s age who are thus advanced in the ways of wisdom.”
“If so,” said Charles, “her superiority is to be ascribed to the peculiar circumstances in which the Father of her spirit has placed her. And, surely, trials which produce such an effect should be endured with submission and remembered with gratitude.”
“That comes home to my conscience,” said Monteath: “I am now under trial, and such ought to be its effect upon me. But your sister’s circumstances have been such as to draw her attention from herself, to carry out her affections and fix them on various objects: but I am afraid the direct tendency of personal suffering is to produce selfishness.”
“It may either do that or the reverse, I believe,” said Charles: “I have known instances of both. I have heard of a cousin of my mother’s, who was a cripple from disease. She passed through life very quietly. She never complained of her deprivations: her temper was placid, and she found employment for her cultivated intellect in studies of various kinds: but nobody was ever the better for them. She did no good, though she never did any harm: she never seemed to love any one person more than another, and of course nobody was particularly attached to her. She lived to the age of sixty, and went on with her own pursuits to the very last, but she left no trace behind her of beneficent deeds, and she lived in the memory and not in the affections of those around her. I have always grieved over the wasted talents of this lady. Half her learning communicated to those less informed than herself, half her time (of which she had abundance) devoted to the assistance of her neighbours, half her affections exchanged with those who were disposed to love her, would have made her wise instead of learned, useful instead of harmless, beloved rather than served, and mourned rather than merely remembered.”
“But she could not have been a pious woman,” said Monteath. “A life of selfishness is inconsistent with piety.”
“Nobody can say that she was not religious,” replied Charles; “because nobody knew what she felt and thought: some say that she must have been pious, or she could not have been placid and contented under her deprivations. I should therefore suppose that she had just enough reliance upon Providence to prevent a naturally cheerful mind from being corroded by discontent: but it is easy to see that she had not those comprehensive views, which teach that the very best of selfish pleasures, those of intellectual cultivation, are to be pursued as a means only, not as an end, and that the grand design for which we are created is to diminish continually our concern for ourselves in an increasing love of God and our neighbour.”
“I cannot help,” said Monteath, “applying cases like these to myself, just now. I want to place as many guides and as many warnings before me as possible. I hope it is not selfish to think of these things with a reference to myself, and to tell you that I do so.”