When Jacob, according to the hopeful verdict of his friends, became a changed man, and cast in his lot with the people of God, it had needed the utmost exercise of the strong restraint which he imposed on himself, as far as outward acts were concerned, to keep him from crying out against what seemed to him to be a profanation of God’s ordinances. After old Mr Hollister’s death, when others fell in with the new order of things, and one after another of his old friends found his place in the church, he kept back and remained a spectator, even when he would gladly have gone with them.
It was only his strong sense of the duty he owed to his family, that took him to the new church at all, and it was to be feared that had it not been for his personal interest in Mr Maxwell, and his real love for the word of truth as presented by him to the people, he would, during the winter which saw the work at Varney’s farm commenced and carried on at Jacob Holt’s bidding, have absented himself from the house of God altogether.
He went, but he did not derive the good from it he might have done in other circumstances, as he longed to do. He was like one bound or blinded; like one striving vainly to reach a hand held out to him, to see clearly a face of love turned toward him, indeed, but with a veil between.
“Thou art a God that hidest Thyself,” was his cry. And when this word followed to his conscience, “Your sins have hid His face from you that He will not hear,” he laid his hand on his mouth, acknowledging that it might well be so; but it was not the sin of his anger against Jacob Holt that came home to him. He told himself that it was the man’s daily hypocrisy that he hated. And if he could not always separate the sinner from the sin in his thoughts, he yet could quiet himself, taking refuge in the knowledge that never by word or deed had he pleaded his own cause against him. He left it to God to deal with him.
But having waited long, and seeing many troubles drawing near, he asked in moments of darkness whether God had indeed forgotten him.
And so the days went on through the spring, and Mrs Fleming watched and waited, saying little, but growing sad at heart to see how rapidly the signs of old age were growing visible upon him.