Margaret Vincent: A Novel

by Mrs. W. K. Clifford

"Margaret," she said, "I've been very hard on you, often and often."

Margaret bent her head and kissed her sister's dress and said nothing, for it was true enough, though she forgave it.

"But I'd like you to understand it," Hannah went on, "then you won't think so bad of me. You see, father came when I was old enough to know, and took mother from me. I felt that he took her, and there was the way he thought about religion and the way that you thought."

"Hannah," said Margaret, "let us speak of it—it's better to do so now while death seems to have broken down the barriers between us. I understand what you mean about father's coming, I do, indeed—I should have felt it, too. But about the religion—you think it a crime that he doesn't believe as you do, but can't you see that if God has given him intellect to think and feel, and he has used them quite conscientiously, and so come to the conclusions that are his now, he is an honest man? He proved his honesty by giving up a great deal—all sorts of worldly advantages, and some one he loved very much before he saw our mother, and, if he came to a wrong conclusion, don't you think that God—God whom you say is a God of love and very just—will at least honor him for being courageous and not making a pretence?"

"If one doesn't believe in the Lord—" Hannah began.

"Oh, but let me speak," Margaret went on, passionately; "it's being honest that matters, and doing right—trying to be all that Christ preached—if we are only that we can leave the rest. It is not we who doubt God, but you who doubt Him when you think He could be hard and cruel to us. There are so many forms of religion in the world besides the one that you believe in; are all the people to be condemned who try to do right from different points of view? It's all a mystery and beyond our comprehension."

"I'd like to know what it is you think?" said Hannah.

"I think that one should be thankful to the Unseen Power that has put all the beauty and happiness into the world; that one should try never to think unkindly or judge harshly, and that we should help each other all we can, and leave the rest to the Power one doesn't understand. Some one wrote once, 'I want to accept the facts as they are, however bitter or severe, to be a lover and a student, but never a lawgiver,' which means that we should not judge others, but only love them and help them and do our work as best we can."

"I think you mean well; but I wish you felt more about religion," Hannah said, a little grudgingly. She looked down at her again, for Margaret had crept back into her arms. It was a new sensation to feel any one there, and she felt almost ashamed of the comfort it gave her. "I'm sorry if I seemed hard," she said, gently. "You know the Bartons were always strict. But you won't go away again? I can't bear to think of you in London."