The only drawback to their visit was that neither Mrs Maltby nor her daughter would be at home; but Mr Maltby had begged them not to postpone their visit on this account, as his sister, Miss Maltby, would be staying with him, and would take the place of hostess to his guests. And, indeed, sorry as Dr Prosser was that he should miss seeing his old lady friends, he was satisfied that their place would be well supplied by the vicar’s sister.
Miss Maltby was considerably older than her brother, and had been almost in the position of a parent to him when he had, in his early life, lost his own mother. She was one of those invaluable single women, not uncommon in the middle rank of society in England, whose sterling excellences are more widely felt than openly appreciated. She was not one of those active ladies who carry little bells on the skirts of their good deeds, so as to make a loud tinkling in the ears of the world. Hers was a quiet and unobtrusive work. Her views of usefulness and duty were, in the eyes of some of her acquaintance, old-fashioned and behind the age. Standing on one side, as it were, out of the whirl of good excitement, she could mark the mistakes and shortcomings in the bringing up of the professedly Christian families which came under her observation, and of the grownup workers of her own sex. But the wisdom she gathered from observation was stored up in a mind ever under the control of a pure and loving heart. Sneer or sarcasm never passed her lips. When called on to reprove the wrong or suggest the right, she always did it with “meekness of wisdom,” her object being, not to glorify self by making others painfully conscious of their inconsistencies or defects, but to guide the erring gently into the paths of righteousness, sober-mindedness, and persuasive godliness. Practical good sense, the fruit of a plain scriptural creed thought out, prayed out, and lived out, in the midst of a thousand unrealities, and half-realities, and distortions of the truth in belief and practice, was the habitual utterance of her lips and guide of her daily life. She and Thomas Bradly were special friends, inasmuch as they were thoroughly kindred spirits, anything like sham or humbug being the abhorrence of both, while the Word of God was to each the one only infallible court of appeal in every question of faith and practice.
“You must see a good deal of the coarser-grained human material here in Crossbourne,” remarked Dr Prosser to the vicar, as they strolled together in the garden in the evening after their meeting. “When I last had the pleasure of visiting you, before you came to this living, your parishioners were of a more civilised stamp.”
“More ‘civil’ would perhaps be a more correct term,” said Mr Maltby, “at least so far as touchings of the hat and smooth speeches were concerned. But, in truth, with all the roughness of these people, there is that sterling courtesy and consideration in many of them which I rarely meet with in more cultivated districts.”
“Well,” said the other, “I suppose that is owing to the increased intelligence produced by habits of reading, attending lectures, and studying mechanism.”
“I think not,” replied the vicar. “I have not, in my own experience, found true courtesy and consideration to be the fruit of increased intelligence. On the contrary, the keener the intellectual edge, as a rule, the keener the pursuit of selfish ends, and the more conspicuous the absence of a regard to the interests and a respect for the feelings of others.”
“Then you don’t credit education with this improvement in courtesy and consideration.”
“Certainly not. I believe that with increased intelligence there is also an increased sensitiveness in all our faculties, and so an increased appreciation of what is beautiful and becoming; but it is the heart that must be touched if there is to be that real concern for the welfare and comfort of others which I have observed in many of my present parishioners. They are rough extremely, but there is an honest and warm heart beneath the surface; and when the love of Christ gets down into these hearts, and the grace of Christ dwells there, I do not know a nobler material to work with.”
Dr Prosser was silent for a minute, then he said, “I suppose we are all agreed that true religion has a very humanising and refining influence. I only feel a wish, at times, that Religion herself were less hampered by creeds and dogmas, so that her full power might be felt, and to a far wider extent. I think that then religious and intellectual advancement would keep steady pace side by side.”
“Do you, my dear friend?” said Mr Maltby sadly. “I must confess I am quite of a different opinion. People seem to me to have gone wild on this subject, and to have lost their senses in their over-anxiety to cultivate them. Intellect-worship is to my mind the master snare of our day. Cram the mind and starve the heart—this is the great popular idolatry. And so religion must be a misty, dreamy sort of thing; not well-defined truth, plainly and sharply taught in God’s Word, requiring faith in revealed doctrines which are to influence the life by taking up a stronghold in the heart, but rather a foggy mixture of light and darkness, of superstition and sentiment, which will leave men to follow pretty nearly their own devices, and allow them to pass through this world with quieted consciences, so long as they are sincere, let their creed be anything or nothing: and as to the future, why, this world is the great land of realities, and a coming judgment, a coming heaven or hell, these are but plausible dreams, or, at the most, interesting speculations. Excuse me, my dear friend, for speaking warmly. I cannot but feel and speak strongly on this subject when I mark the growing tendency in our day to fall down and worship the cultivation of the intellect, to the neglect and disparagement of definite gospel truth, and of that education of the heart without which, I am more firmly persuaded every day, there cannot be either individual peace, home virtue and happiness, or public honour and morality.”