"O no, dear, he won't do anything so highly indecorous. It was a hasty expression."
"I hope so, because the morale of such an application would be this: he would rather his parishioners should die in despair, than they should derive hope and spiritual consolation from the promises of Jesus Christ, repeated to them and explained to them by a brother clergyman of another parish."
"But, dear Matilda, in this case the brother clergyman is an evangelical."
"Admitted; but then he does what Mr. Cole could not do; he gives consolation and hope to a person when dying. This case is causing much excitement; it is bringing the efficacy of the sacraments into disrepute. I shall never, ma', forget my interview with Amelia; her serene look, her composure, the soft yet full intonations of her voice when bidding adieu to what she called this vain world, and hailing the dawn of a blissful immortality. And, ma', she wept many tears when she was urging me to flee from the wrath to come."
"Why, dear, it was very uncharitable in her even to suppose that such a dear innocent as you are is exposed to the wrath to come, but to allude to it was an act of great rudeness. I wonder you did not resent it."
"Really, ma', I felt when she was speaking as though what she said was very applicable and proper. But perhaps we were both labouring under a wrong impression. However, the conclusion which I have come to is this, though I have not mentioned it to any one before, that there is a power in evangelical religion of which we can form no idea. There's a mystery about it I cannot fathom."
"I am glad that dear Amelia is happy in prospect of death; she was always a virtuous girl, with a good heart; and now we will dismiss the subject, to talk about something else. Come, let us go into the drawing-room, and we will have a little music. You dwell on melancholy ideas too much; dismiss them, dear."
"Dismiss them! Why, ma', my thoughts come and go without my control. Some are strange thoughts, such as I never had before, and some are the same as usual. My mind is quite jaded by its own activity; and if I go to rest, and go to sleep, it is just the same then, as it is now. I often wonder what the issue of all this mental turmoil will be."
"Here is Mr. Ryder and his sister coming; they will cheer you up."
"Don't tell them that I am unhappy; it may excite suspicion or jealousy."