Light, purer light, the light of God’s truth, had indeed shone into her heart, but that light was suffering a gradual and deepening eclipse through the shadow cast by the idol of intellectual ambition, which had usurped for a while the place where once her Saviour reigned supreme. And the poor body was suffering, for the overstrained mind was sapping the vigour of all its powers. And then there came a resort to that remedy, the stimulant which spurs up the flagging energies to extraordinary and spasmodic exertion, only to leave the poor deluded victim more prostrate and exhausted than ever.
The vicar had never been satisfied with his daughter’s course. Life, in his view, was too short and eternity too near to justify any one in pursuing even the most innocent and laudable object in such a manner as to unfit the soul for keeping steadily in view its highest interests, and to engross the mind and life so entirely as to shut all the doors of loving and Christian usefulness. While acknowledging the value of storing, cultivating, and enlarging the mind, he became daily more and more convinced that such mental improvement was becoming a special snare to the young and enthusiastic; beguiling them into the neglect of manifest duty, and into a refined and subtle self-worship, which, in the case of those who had set out on the narrow way, was changing the substance for a shadow, and destroying that peace which none can truly feel who rob their Saviour of the consecration of all that they have and are to his glory.
But deeply as he deplored the change in his daughter’s habits, and her withdrawal from first one good work and then another, he had not fully realised how it had come about, and the mischief it was doing to the body, mind, and soul of the child he loved so dearly. It was only gradually that she had relinquished first one useful occupation, and then another; and circumstances seemed at the time to make such withdrawal necessary.
Then, too, his wife’s reluctance to see that, after all, she had mistaken the path on which she should have encouraged her daughter to travel, had led her to make as light as possible of the evil effects, which were only too plain to others not so nearly interested in her child’s well-being. She could not bear to think that, after all, Clara’s pursuit of intellectual distinction was physically, morally, and spiritually a huge mistake, and that she was purchasing success at the cost of health and peace. “There was nothing seriously amiss with her,” she would tell her husband, when he expressed his misgivings and fears; “she only wanted a little change; that would set her up: there was no real cause for anxiety. It would never do for Clara to be behind the rest of the girls of her age in intellectual attainments: it would be doing her injustice, for she was so manifestly calculated to shine; and if God had given her the abilities and the tastes, surely they ought to be cultivated. She could return by-and-by to her work in the Sunday-school and the parish. And then, how much better it was that she should be acquiring really solid and useful knowledge, which would be always valuable to her, than be spending her energies on any of the worldly or frivolous pursuits which were entangling and spoiling so many well-disposed girls in our day.”
Alas! The poor mother, whose own heart and conscience were not really satisfied with these reasonings, had forgotten, or failed to see, that the same devotion to study which kept her daughter out of the ensnaring ways of worldliness and frivolity, equally kept her from treading that path of shining usefulness along which all must walk who would fulfil the great purpose for which God has put us into this land of probation and preparation for our eternal home.
Thomas Bradly saw plainly how matters were, and when the vicar hinted at his difficulties connected with his daughter’s pursuits, as they were talking together over Sunday-school and parochial work, spoke out his mind plainly and faithfully.
“Well, Thomas,” said Mr Maltby, “you see a little how I am situated. My dear child is, I trust and believe, a true Christian; but I am free to confess that I am sadly disappointed at the turn which things have taken about her studies.”
“I can well believe it, sir,” was Bradly’s reply, “and I feel for you with all my heart. And I’m disappointed myself about Miss Clara, and so’s scores more in the parish. The Sunday-school ain’t the same as it was—no, nor the parish neither, now that she don’t come among us as she used to do. But there’s a twist somewheres in people’s views about the education of young ladies in our day. ’Tain’t so much in my way, sir, it’s true, as it is in yours, to notice these things; but sometimes them as is standing a little way off gets a better view of how things really are than them as is quite close by.”
“Quite so, Thomas,” said the other. “Tell me, then, candidly what you think about this matter.”
“I’ll do so, sir, as I know you’ll not misunderstand me; and you know that I love you and yours with all my heart. Well, sir, it seems to me as they’re beginning at the wrong place altogether, in filling young ladies’ heads, as they do, with all sorts and sizes of knowledge.”