“And that He made you an Englishman, and so sent you to England; and that He made you a sea-captain, and among other places sent you to Newfoundland.”
“Well—I—I suppose He did,” returned the captain, with that puzzled expression of countenance which was wont to indicate that his mind was grappling difficulties.
“Well, then,” continued Paul, “being good, of course the Almighty sent us to do good; but He also gave us free wills, which just means permission to do as we please; so it remains to be seen whether we will use our free wills in working with Him, or in trying to work against Him, for, strange to say, we cannot really work against God, we can only try to do it, and in so trying we establish the fact of our own wickedness; but His grand and good purposes shall be carried out in spite of us notwithstanding, for he can bring good out of evil.”
“Now, Paul, I’ve lost soundings altogether, and it’s my opinion that you are foolishly talking about things that you, don’t understand.”
“I never heard, Master Trench, that it was foolish to talk about what one does not understand! On the contrary, it is by talking of things that we don’t understand that we manage at last to understand them. You had a deal of talking about navigation, had you not, before you understood it?”
“Look ’ee here, lad,” said Trench, stopping suddenly, with his legs planted firmly apart as though on the quarter-deck of his ship in a cross sea, while he drove his right fist into the palm of his left hand argumentatively. “Look ’ee here. How can it be possible that—that—pooh! Come along, we’ll never get on with our survey of the land if we dispute at this rate.”
The stout mariner turned away with an air of exasperation, and resumed his walk at a rapid pace, closely followed by his amused friend and son.
This irreverent mode of dismissing a grave and difficult subject was not peculiar to Captain Trench. It has probably been adopted by those who shrink from mental effort ever since the days of Adam and Eve. Minds great and small have exercised themselves since the beginning of time on this perplexing subject—God’s sovereignty and man’s free will—with benefit, probably, to themselves. We recommend it in passing, good reader, to your attention, and we will claim to be guiltless of presumption in thus advising, so long as the writing stands, “Prove all things, and hold fast that which is good.”
Before the sun went down that night our explorers had plunged into the very heart of the beautiful country which we have described—now pushing through tangled underwood, or following the innumerable deer-tracks with which the country was seamed, or breasting the hill-sides, or making détours to get round small lakes, being guided, in a westerly direction, by a small pocket-compass which Captain Trench was fortunately in the habit of carrying with him wherever he went. No large lakes or broad rivers had yet been met with, so that up to this point the divergencies from the direct line had not been great.
Thus they advanced for several days, subsisting on game and fish, chiefly the last, however; for their shooting powers were very defective, and Oliver was an ardent—too ardent—fisher. Their inability to shoot became at last a serious matter, for many arrows and bolts were lost, as well as much game.