"I can't help it, father. It's the Evil One, perhaps. If it be, I'll cheat him, by making a clean breast of it. I can't abide the stuff; I can't see my way through it."
"My son, it is your sin that blinds you."
"Very likely," says Reuben.
"It was not thus with you three months ago, Reuben," continues the Doctor, in a softened tone.
"No, father, there was a strange light around me in those days. It seemed to me that the path lay clear and shining through all the maze. If Death had caught me then, I think I could have sung hosannas with the saints. It was a beautiful dream. It's faded dismally, father,—as if the Devil had painted it."
The old man shuddered, and lifted his hands, as he was wont to do in his most earnest pleas at the Throne of Grace.
"The muddle of the world and the theologies has come in since," continued Reuben, "and the base professions I see around me, and the hypocrisies and the cant, have taken away the glow. It's all a weariness and a confusion, and that's the solemn truth."
The Doctor said, measuredly, (as if the Book were before him,)—
"'Some seeds fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth; and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth. And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.' Reuben! Reuben! we must agonize to enter into the strait gate!"
"It's a long agony," said Reuben; and he rose and paced back and forth for a time; then suddenly stopping before the Doctor, he laid his hand upon his shoulder, (the boy was of manly height now, and overtopped the old gentleman by an inch,)—"Father, it grieves me to pain you,—indeed it does; but truth is truth. I have told you my story; but if you wish it, I will live outwardly as if no such talk had passed. I will respect as much as ever all your religious observances, and no person shall be the wiser."