“It is sad,” said Mrs. Woodburn; “but let us wait God’s time, my dear child; I will still hope that so excellent a young man, with such sense and such a heart, must come right at last.”
Ann again shook her head, and said, sorrowfully, “I don’t know; pray God it may be so,” and went on with her sewing.
As a conversation between Mr. Clavering and Miss Woodburn happened to come to my ear, as it does so often come, by means of the little bird which carries so many arcana to authorly ears, I may throw a little light on the mysterious words of Mrs. Woodburn and her daughter. For a long time there had been a strong and tender attachment betwixt Henry Clavering and Ann Woodburn. Mr. Clavering, George’s old schoolfellow, and almost constant companion since, had been most intimate at Woodburn Grange. The whole family loved and admired him, for his sound sense, high moral feeling, and unassuming kindly disposition. The attachment betwixt Ann and him had grown up almost insensibly. He made a direct offer to Ann, and this was warmly seconded by every one of her family. Independently of the splendid fortune and title which Mr. Clavering would inherit, and the fortunate nearness of his abode, no woman could expect to find in a husband a more agreeable person, a more rich possessor of moral and intellectual endowments and qualities. What, then, stood in the way? There was an obstacle, to Ann’s religious and conscientious nature, which in her opinion was insurmountable. Mr. Clavering had no faith in Christianity: he had but a doubtful one in the existence of man after death.
Sir Emanuel Clavering, as we have seen, was accredited in the mind of the common people round with the practice of the black art. For that, of course, there was no foundation; but as there cannot well be smoke where there is no fire, there was a certain foundation for this notion. Sir Emanuel, in the ardent pursuit of astronomical science, had acquired the most profound idea of the wondrous construction and illimitable extent of the universe. That it was produced and upheld in such beautiful order by some great invisible power co-extensive with itself, he could not doubt; but he felt an invincible difficulty in imagining that this could be any living being. He believed it rather to be an intelligent principle or force producing all things—the soul, as it were, of all visible creation. In a word, he was what we understand by a Pantheist. If there were a God, he conceived it must be a sentient principle rather than a concentrated mind, inhabiting some localised vehicle perceptible even to spiritual beings, if there were such. It was to him something illimitable, unapproachable, incomprehensible: the infinite, impossible to be conceived of, or perceived by the finite. For these reasons, he disbelieved the whole narrative of God taking a human form and coming down and dying for mankind.
Mrs. Heritage, deeply grieved at such notions in a man otherwise excellent and so agreeable, had felt herself drawn to meet him, and reason with him on this head. Admitting that the infinite must be incomprehensible to the finite, she asked him if he could understand his own existence? Yet he did exist, and so did God. Had no such scheme as this earth, and of human beings living in so complicated a machine of flesh, blood, nerves, and their sensations, supported by vegetables converted by digestive process into this flesh and blood; of the growth of all animals, and of man himself; of all vegetables, of the mightiest trees, with all their varied and delicious fruits and essences—not been exhibited to intellectual beings capable of observing it, she urged that such beings could by no possibility have conceived the idea of so marvellous a creation.
Sir Emanuel admitted the force of her arguments, and thanked her most warmly for presenting them to his mind, but he could by no means bring himself to believe, amidst the myriads of worlds which the telescope revealed to the eye—far as its powers could open up the inconceivable distances of the heavens—that God could condescend to come down to this one little planet, and take upon himself the weaknesses and inconveniences of humanity, and be insulted and killed by his own creatures. It revolted, he said, the totality of his reason.
Mrs. Heritage reminded him that he had just admitted that everything around him was beyond the grasp of reason, and he ought to content himself with the unquestionable facts of a thoroughly authenticated history.
Sir Emanuel smiled, and said that he must think of that part of the subject, and concluded the conversation by thanking Mrs. Heritage, and asking her to go and look at some American deer that he had just received from the United States. Mrs. Heritage often afterwards renewed the conversation with Sir Emanuel, and he had always received her remarks in the kindest and most courteous manner, but remained apparently as fixed in his old views as ever. In these views Henry Clavering, his only son, had grown up. They had never been expressly taught him by his father, but he had listened to conversations on these topics so often, and had such respect for the talents and honourable nature of his father, whilst his mother had been lost to him when very young, that these ideas were to him as part of his mental constitution.
It was this knowledge that had been Ann Woodburn’s stumbling-block and most painful trial. Loving Mr. Clavering with all the strength of her deeply-feeling nature, she could not bring herself to contemplate an alliance with a man who was not a Christian, whatever else he might be. Oh, many a long and deep struggle it had occasioned her; many a restless and sleepless night; many a sorrowful, miserable day. Sometimes her agony rose to such desperation that she had locked herself in her bedroom and flung herself on the floor, and rolled there in a frenzy of grief. All her eloquence had been used to induce Henry Clavering to read works of our great divines on the subject; all the arguments with which they had furnished her she had zealously urged on him; but without any effect but that of making him as wretched as herself. He told her that most gladly would he be convinced, most earnestly he wished that he could think as she did; but he could not, and would not conceal from her the truth. After long endeavours and waitings on the part of Ann, and a state of mind most wearing to Mr. Clavering himself, Ann had told him that she felt that she never could consent to a union whilst their opinion on so vital a point remained as they were and though to her it was like dividing soul and body, she would not remain a tie upon him; she left him free as the winds to choose some more fortunate and, as he might think, more reasonable woman.
To this proposal Henry Clavering would not listen. “No,” said he, “my dearest Ann, I cannot change my heart and soul at pleasure. With you or with no one must I unite my life. I feel the greatness of your self-sacrifice, but it is not in your power to set me free. I am what I am, and must be. My love for you is rooted into the deepest region of my heart—neither you nor I can tear it out at will. I will wait for you as long as you like—and you or I may change.”