Before the expiration of a week, he had communicated to the different members of the little circle, all that respectively most interested each. But it was only when alone with his revered uncle, that he laid open the undisguised history of all that had befallen him in his father's calamities and his own; the undisguised confession of his trials, his disappointments, and the present unnatural torpor of his soul.
The Pastor, with the gentleness of affection, and a knowledge that knew when to probe, to render the cure more radical, entered on all these discussions with wisdom and truth. He shewed Louis how mistaken had been his early conceptions of human nature; how idolatrous had been his estimation of beings, formed of the same dust and ashes as himself.
"I told you this from the first, my child!" said he; "and though your lips accorded, your spirit would not believe. But it is the error of most of us. We garnish finite man with the perfections of the infinite God. We fall down and worship the image we have made. We pray to it, we rest on it. But we soon find our trust is in a piece of clay. It has ears, and hears not; eyes, and sees not; and hands that cannot help!—Yes, Louis, all earthly idols are little more than blocks of wood; which might have been secure staves to hold us on our way; but when elevated to shrines, we find them things of naught. Now, my son, if we view all that are born of woman as erring creatures like ourselves; and accordingly love and assist, pardon and sustain them; we shall support, and be supported, through this travelling pilgrimage, till we at last lay down our heads in the grave, at peace with all mankind. But, on the reverse, when we look for perfection, and meet error, we are shocked; we resent and abhor; we do not forgive, we will not excuse; and they become our enemies from despair, whom the tender charities of a Christian spirit might have preserved as friends, and in time, persuaded to the hope of unerring purity!"
Louis acknowledged the truth of these observations. He had erred under them all, excepting that, of not knowing how to pardon; and there, his heart bore witness to itself, that he could forgive the hand that stabbed him.
"Yes, Sir;" replied he, "I know that in striving after excellence; to bear, and to forbear, is the duty of men on earth. Perfect virtue will be his happiness in Heaven."
"You sigh, very heavily, my dear Louis;" replied Mr. Athelstone, "while you acknowledge this!—But so right a judgement at so early an age, is cheaply purchased by the sweet uses of adversity!—you know I told you, in my first letter on the beginning of your misfortunes; that, may be you were only entered into a cloud, which would shed forth a gentle shower to refresh your virtues—and the event has proved it." "But not with gentle showers!" replied Louis with a smile of anguish.
"No, my child," answered the Pastor, tenderly regarding him; "but had you not required it, they would not have been so heavy."
"I believe it, Sir!" replied Louis rising from his chair, "I was proud, and I was ambitious. The world reigned in my heart, when you thought it possessed by a better principle. I was ignorant of my own state, till I was made to see my own likeness in a mirror—But we will not speak further on it!" cried he, interrupting himself,—"It is over,—quite over;—buried deep, deep—beneath the walls of Tetuan!"
Louis had touched a string that made every chord in his heart vibrate; and, he quitted the venerable presence, to recover composure in the recollections of solitude.