"I see," said Chester.
"'We first endure, then pity, then embrace,'
the vices we come in contact with. But vices we witness for the first time—they do not always shock us."
"The more pleasing the devil's coat, the more dangerous he is," replied Father Brighthopes. "And there is another thing to be considered. Persons following intellectual pursuits are apt to take purely intellectual views of great as well as petty crimes. The independent MIND can analyze the nature of a murder, coolly as the anatomist dissects his human subject. Eugene Aram has too much intellect. Perhaps his heart is not bad,—what there is of it,—but its virtue is negative. When we silence the conscience, in judging of right and wrong, reason is sure to lead us astray."
"I understand now, better than ever before, why expanded minds are so prone to smile upon and shake hands with crime," said Chester. "Enlarging the intellect, to the neglect of the soul, we leave this to become shriveled, like a flower growing in the shade of a great tree."
"A truth, my young friend, every student should bear in mind," observed the clergyman, earnestly.
Chester walked before him, on a thick fragment of bark, and over a grassy knoll, in silence. He was wondering why it was that the gentle old man had gained such a power over him, to conquer his pride, and to call out his deepest feelings.
"I don't know why it is," said he, as they crossed a rude bridge, thrown over the sluggish brook, "but I feel as though I could talk with you more freely than with anybody else. Perhaps it is well that the stage-coach incident occurred. I felt that I must apologize to you for my ungentlemanly conduct; and I see that what was so unpleasant to me was only the breaking of the ice. It must be your wide and genial charity that has had such an effect upon me. Clergymen are generally such grim moralists, that they make me shudder."
"When I consider the calm benignity, the ineffably sweet wisdom, the infinite love of Him who said, 'Go, and sin no more,' what am I, that I should condemn a brother?" said Father Brighthopes, with suffused features.
Chester was deeply touched.