"But why did your father deny a request so reasonable?"
"He would not have done it if he had not been influenced by others; for such is the strength of his attachment for me, and such his devotedness to my happiness, that he has heretofore deemed no sacrifice too great, nor any indulgence too expensive to promote my comfort. But the Rev. Mr. Cole and some lay gentlemen have urged him to interpose his authority, to save me from what they call the delirium of religion. They tell him that his honour, his peace, and his influence, are all in jeopardy; and that if I am permitted to go on in my present course, nothing but inevitable ruin awaits me. By such stratagems they have induced him to act a part which I know is repugnant to the generous feelings of his nature; because he told me, at an early stage of my hallowed impressions, that if I found peace in religion, he would not presume to interfere."
"This trial," said Mrs. Stevens, "is not joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, it will yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness. Though it comes through a medium which invests it with a peculiar poignancy, and may throw a gloomy shade over all your hopes of future comfort, yet the Redeemer says, 'My grace shall be sufficient for thee, my strength shall be made perfect in thy weakness.' You have only to act wisely, and with decision; keep your conscience void of offence towards God and man; demonstrate, by the meekness of your disposition, and your efforts to please, that your religion is not the religion of fancy or of passion, but of principle; and then you will rise above the visible agents who are employed in conducting the machinery of Providence, to meditate on Him who sits behind the cloud that conceals Him from our sight, working all things after the counsel of His own will."
"I have known," I remarked, "some young Christians commence their religious profession under auspicious influences. They have been hailed by pious parents and pious friends with acclamations of joy; the spring-time of their spiritual existence has been free from the rude blasts of persecution; and they have advanced from stage to stage, with unobstructed and undiverted steps. I have known others rocked in the whirlwind, and cradled in the storm. They have had to contend with the principalities and powers of evil in their high places. They have been despised and rejected; and the reproaches of men have fallen upon them. But I generally find that opposition at the commencement of a religious profession has a beneficial rather than an injurious tendency. It forces its principles deeper into the mind. It consolidates them. It gives to them an energy which ultimately rises superior to resistance; a healthful vigour, which they rarely attain to when nourished by the fostering hand of parental solicitude; and it brings them forth into such visible and powerful manifestations, that even the enemies of our common faith are compelled to feel
'How awful goodness is!'"
"Yes, Sir," observed Mrs. Stevens, "and we should remember that those who oppose religion, when it takes possession of an individual mind, and exerts its influence over the visible actions of the life, often do it ignorantly. If they knew that they were attempting to resist the work of God in the new creation of the human soul, they would cease their opposition. But they do not. They have no conception of such a thing. They ridicule it as visionary; and if a person offer to prove, by sober arguments taken from the Scriptures, or from the Articles of our church, that such a new creation of the soul is a reality, and that it will develope itself precisely in that exterior form which they see exhibited in the conduct of those whom they oppose, yet they will refuse to hear. Their unfairness to meet the arguments in support of the reality of the thing, I grant, is very censurable; but it must be attributed to that judicial moral blindness which is one of the consequences of our apostasy from God, and which calls for the exercise of our forbearance and our tenderest pity. Hence, when we are reviled for our religion, we should not revile again; when we suffer, we should forbear to reproach; and commit our cause to Him who judgeth righteously."
In the course of the week I availed myself of the opportunity, during the absence of my esteemed friends from the villa, to go and take tea at Farmer Pickford's; and I was very much gratified by my visit. During the evening he made several references to his wife's attendance at the chapel; and at length he spoke out, by saying, "Mr. Stevens, I think, is about one of the best of us: he is very charitable to the poor, and so is his wife; and he is always willing to do any body a good turn when he can; and my wife says he is a capital preacher, but I can't think so."
"Have you ever heard him preach?"