"Let them grow together until the harvest," said Arthur. "It is a convincing proof of the truth of Religion, that there are careful counterfeits."
"I do not impeach the 'truth of Religion.' You need not speak so reproachfully, Arthur. I believe in the Christianity of the Scriptures. What I assail, is intermittent piety; springs, whose channels are dusty, save at particular seasons;—camp-meetings and the like; men, who furbish up their religion, along with their go-to-meeting boots, and wear it no longer. Their brethren despise them as I do; but their mouths are shut, lest they 'bring disgrace upon their profession.' It can have no fouler disgrace than their lives afford. I speak what others conceal; when one of these whited sepulchres lifts his Bible to break my head, for a graceless reprobate, I pelt him with pebbles from the clear brook. Look at old Thistleton! a mongrel,—porcupine and bull-dog;—pricking and snarling from morning 'till night. A Christian is a gentleman; he is a surly growler. Half of the church hate, the other half dread him; yet he sits on Sabbaths, in the high places of the synagogues, leads prayer-meetings, and weeps over sinners—sanctified 'brother Thistleton.' He thunders the law at me; and I knock him down with a stout stick, St. John cuts ready to my hand;—'If a man say, I love God, and hate his brother, he is a liar!' I hush up Rogers, with—'No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom;' and Mather, with, 'You cannot serve God and Mammon.' They say I am a scoffer;—I don't care. Now"—continued this contrary being, passing into a tone of reverent feeling;—"There is my kind guardian. I don't believe he ever shouted, or made a public address in his life. He lives his religion; a child can perceive that the Bible is a 'lamp to his feet;' a pillar of cloud in prosperity; a sun in adversity. I saw it when a boy, and it did me more good than the preached sermons I have listened to since. He called me into his study the night before I left home, and gave me a copy of 'the book.' 'Charley, my son,' said he, 'you are venturing upon untried seas; here is the Chart, to which I have trusted for twenty years; and have never been led by it, upon a quicksand. Look to it, my boy!' I have read it, more, because he asked it, than for its intrinsic value; that is my failing, not his. I have waded through sloughs of theories and objections; but hold to it still. Especially, when I am here, and kneel in my old place at the family altar; hear the solemn tones, that quieted my boyish gayety; when I witness his irreproachable, useful life, I say, 'His chart is true; would I were guided by it!' No—no—Art.! I may be careless and sinful;—I am no skeptic."
"A skeptic" exclaimed Lynn. "There never was one! Voltaire was a fiend incarnate; a devil, who 'believed and trembled,' in spite of his hardihood; Paine, a brute, who, inconvenienced by a soul, which would not sink as low as his passions commanded, tried to show that he had none, as the easiest method of disembarrassing himself. That one of God's creatures, who can look up to the glories of a night like this, or see the sun rise to-morrow morning, and peep, in his insect voice, a denial of Him who made the world, is demon or beast;—often both. 'Call no man happy 'till he dies.' Atheists have gone to the stake for their opinions; but physical courage or the heat of fanaticism, not the belief, sustained them. We have yet to hear of the infidel, who died in his bed,
'As one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.'"
"It is a mystery that one can die tranquilly," said Carry.
"I have stood by many peaceful death-beds," returned Arthur. "I never wish so ardently for an interest in the Redemption, as when I watch the departure of a saint. One verse is in my mind for days afterwards. I repeat it aloud as I ride alone; and it lingers in my last waking thought at night:
'Jesus can make a dying bed
Feel soft as downy pillows are;
While on his breast, I lean my head,
And breathe my life out sweetly there.'
"And why do you not encourage these feelings?" asked Charley, bluntly. "I call that conviction; a different thing from the burly of this morning. You want to be a Christian;—so do I sometimes; but you are a more hopeful subject."
"I am by no means certain of that. You would never abide with the half-decided, so long as I have done. You are one of the 'violent,' who would take the kingdom of Heaven by force."
"How strange!" said Charley, thoughtfully.