"Yes, I have felt the deep anguish of offering up a bleeding heart upon the altar of duty. But oh, how great has been my reward! what joy and peace has arisen out of the very sorrow that was at first so overwhelming. What a blessed light sprang out of that dense darkness, when the Holy Spirit first illumined, with irresistible splendour, the black gulf of despair in which my soul lay grovelling. Though keenly conscious of my lost state, I was totally unable to express my wants and desires in prayer.
"A humble instrument was sent to aid me in that terrible conflict. A rude, uneducated man, but a sincere Christian, who had recently entered my service, and who watched by my sick bed when all my friends forsook me for fear of infection. He it was who opened up to me the sublime truths of the Gospel, and taught me to pray.
"To me, he became more than a friend or brother, my father in Christ. I loved him as only a son new-born to life could love such a benefactor. When I recovered from that terrible fever, he took it and died.
"Oh, what a triumph was that death! How serenely he rendered up his simple soul to his Creator, and entered the dark river with a smile upon his lips, and the light of Heaven upon his brow. Whenever my faith grows weak, I think of Harley's death-bed, and become as strong as a lion ready to battle for the truth against a whole world combined."
"You are no bigot either, Fitzmorris."
"I abhor it in any shape. Religion was meant to make men happy, not gloomy, morose, and censorious, condemning others because they cannot think as we think, or see any particular advantages in the forms and ceremonies that we deem essential. It is only in modes of worship that real Christians differ. I always endeavour to look beyond the outward and material, to the inward and spiritual."
Henry Martin was very much of the same way of thinking, but he was not such an enthusiast as Gerald Fitzmorris, and, perhaps, lacked the mental courage to avow it.
For some weeks, Mr. Fitzmorris was so much engaged in going round the two parishes of Hadstone and Storby, for he had been inducted into both, and getting acquainted with the church members, that Dorothy could go and practice her lessons without any fear of meeting him.
Storby, being a sea-port town containing several thousand inhabitants, offered a larger field of usefulness, and the Hadstone folk were left almost entirely to the care of Henry Martin, Mr. Fitzmorris occasionally preaching and inspecting the Sunday school.