That is to say, my Ah Yung, that every chapter, every sentence, every word, and every syllable of the Bible had been literally inspired, and was absolutely true. This we were expected to believe and did believe; and by what ingenuity we were to escape the dogma of eternal damnation I, for one, cannot see. But we made no effort to escape it, regarding it, to a man, as the mainstay of society and the sheet-anchor of all the virtues. A belief in hell was ranked among the necessaries of life.
“’Twas the merest luxury,” quoth Charley.
Now, what is the imagination but a kind of inner eye, revealing to us, often with fearful distinctness, that which may be, but is not. And imagination was, as we know, an overshadowing trait of Mary’s mind.
And what a training that imagination had! Her mother thought it was her duty, so let that pass; but hardly had she shed her long clothes when her precocious little head began to teem with burning lakes, and writhing souls, and mocking demons, and worms that die not. And, ofttimes, her little heart almost ceased to beat, as she lay in her trundle-bed, and, with wide-staring eyes, saw her own baby-self engirdled with unquenchable flames. For had she not fretted over her Sunday-school lesson that very morning (longing to dress her new doll), and said it was too long, and oh! that she hated the catechism?
Now, among those who accept this dogma, there are various ways of dealing with it. The immense majority inscribe it among the articles of their creed, fold the paper, label it, and file it away in some dusty pigeon-hole, in an out-of-the way corner of their heads, and go about their business. They are satisfied to know that it is there, and that there is no heresy about them. A true Virginian looks upon his faith much as he does upon a Potomac herring, and would no more think of finding fault with the one because of a knotty point or so, than with the other for the bones it contains. He wouldn’t be caught carrying a stomach about with him that was capable of making wry faces over such spiculæ, not he. Look at that noble roe, that firm flesh, as stimulating as cognac! No cod-fish, no heresy for him!
So with the vast majority.
Then, there is another class of minds, with which to believe is to realize. To such this article of their faith assumes abnormal proportions, dwarfing all others. Upon this alone their glassy eyes are fixed. Let us pass them by with bowed heads. Seeking heaven in the world to come, they have found a hell in this.
Our Mary stood between these two classes, belonging to neither; but by the nature of her mental constitution she leaned fearfully towards the latter. Seeing is believing; but with Mary to believe was to see. And from her infancy to her womanhood her fond mother had done all that in her lay, unwittingly, to overthrow her reason. That that fair mind did not become as sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh, was due to her father. It was he that saved, her,—unwittingly as well,—saved her through books.
Mr. Rolfe had no son, and Mary was his only daughter. He made her his companion in his walks and in his study; and she became, like him, an omnivorous reader; and the baleful phantasms of her distempered spirit grew paler in the presence of other and brighter thoughts. The process went further. As she read and read, drawing upon all the great literatures (when she could, in the original—else in translations), there gradually dawned upon her a sense of the immense diversity of human opinion.
And yet, with what undoubting tenacity each people clung to its faith! Hindu, Turk, Greek, Spaniard, Scotchman,—each was in exclusive possession of the Eternal Verities!