Coelebs In Search of a Wife Part 18

I asked some further questions, only to have the pleasure of hearing him talk longer about Lucilla. "But, sir," said he, interrupting me, "I hear bad news, very bad news. Pray, your honor, forgive me." "What do you mean, James?" said I, seeing his eyes fill. "Why, sir, all the servants at the Grove will have it that you are come to carry off Miss Lucilla, G.o.d bless her whenever she goes. Your Mr. Edwards, sir, says you are one of the best of gentlemen, but indeed, indeed, I don't know who can deserve her. She will carry a blessing wherever she goes." The honest fellow put up the sleeve of his coat to brush away his tears, nor was I ashamed of those with which his honest affection filled my own eyes.

While we were talking, a poor little girl, who I knew, by her neat uniform, belonged to Miss Stanley's school, pa.s.sed us with a little basket in her hand. James called to her, "Make haste, Rachel, you are after your time."

"What, this is market-day, James, is it?" said Doctor Barlow, "and Rachel is come for her nosegays." "Yes, sir," said James; "I forgot to tell their honors, that every Sat.u.r.day, as soon as her school is over, the younger Misses give Rachel leave to come and fetch some flowers out of their garden, which she carries to the town to sell; she commonly gets a s.h.i.+lling, half of which they make her lay out to bring home a little tea for her poor sick mother, and the other half she lays up to buy shoes and stockings for herself and her crippled sister. Every little is a help where there is nothing, sir."

Sir John said nothing, but looked at Lady Belfield, whose eyes glistened while she softly said, "O, how little do the rich ever think what the aggregate even of their own squandered s.h.i.+llings would do in the way of charity, were they systematically applied to it!"

James now unlocked a little private door, which opened into the pleasure-ground. There, at a distance, sitting in a circle on the new-mown gra.s.s, under a tree, we beheld all the little Stanleys, with a basket of flowers between them, out of which they were earnestly employed in sorting and tying up nosegays. We stood some time admiring their little busy faces and active fingers, without their perceiving us, and got up to them just as they were putting their prettily-formed bouquets into Rachel's basket, with which she marched off, with many charges from the children to waste no time by the way, and to be sure to leave the nosegay that had the myrtle in it at Mrs. Williams's.

"How many nosegays have you given to Rachel to-day, Louisa?" said Dr.

Barlow to the eldest of the four. "Only three apiece, sir," replied she.

"We think it a bad day when we can't make up our dozen. They are all our own; we seldom touch mamma's flowers, and we never suffer James to take ours, because Ph[oe]be says it might be tempting him. Little Jane lamented that Lucilla had given them nothing to-day, except two or three sprigs of her best flowering myrtle, which," added she, "we make Rachel give into the bargain to a poor sick lady who loves flowers, and used to have good ones of her own, but who has now no money to spare, and could not afford to give more than the common price for a nosegay for her sick room. So we always slip a nice flower or two out of the green-house into her little bunch, and say nothing. When we walk that way we often leave her some flowers ourselves, and would do it oftener if it did not hurt poor Rachel's trade."

As we walked away from the sweet prattlers, Dr. Barlow said: "These little creatures already emulate their sisters in a.s.sociating some petty kindness with their own pleasures. The act is trifling, but the habit is good; as is every habit which helps to take us out of self, which teaches us to transfer our attention from our own gratification to the wants or the pleasures of another."

"I confess," said Lady Belfield, as we entered the house, "that it never occurred to me that it was any part of charity to train my children to the habit of sacrificing their time or their pleasure for the benefit of others, though to do them justice, they are very feeling and very liberal with their money."

"My dear Caroline," said Sir John, "it is our money, not theirs. It is, I fear, a cheap liberality, and abridges not themselves of one enjoyment. They well know we are so pleased to see them charitable that we shall instantly repay them with interest whatever they give away, so that we have hitherto afforded them no opportunity to show their actual dispositions. Nay, I begin to fear that they may become charitable through covetousness, if they find out that the more they give the more they shall get. We must correct this artificial liberality as soon as we get home."

CHAPTER x.x.x.

A few days after, Sir John Belfield and I agreed to take a ride to Mr.

Carlton's, where we breakfasted. Nothing could be more rational than the whole turn of his mind, nor more agreeable and unreserved than his conversation. His behavior to his amiable wife was affectionately attentive, and Sir John, who is a most critical observer, remarked that it was quite natural and unaffected. It appeared to be the result of esteem inspired by her merit, and quickened by a sense of his own former unworthiness, which made him feel as if he could never do enough to efface the memory of past unkindness. He manifested evident symptoms of a mind earnestly intent on the discovery and pursuit of moral and religious truth; and from the natural ardor of his character, and the sincerity of his remorse, his attainments seemed likely to be rapid and considerable.

The sweet benignity of Mrs. Carlton's countenance was lighted up at our entrance with a smile of satisfaction. We had been informed with what pleasure she observed every accession of right-minded acquaintance which her husband made. Though her natural modesty prevented her from introducing any subject herself, yet when any thing useful was brought forward by others, she promoted it by a look compounded of pleasure and intelligence.

After a variety of topics had been dispatched, the conversation fell on the prejudices which were commonly entertained by men of the world against religion. "For my own part," said Mr. Carlton, "I must confess that no man had ever more or stronger prejudices to combat than myself.

I mean not my own exculpation when I add, that the imprudence, the want of judgment, and, above all, the incongruous mixtures and inconsistencies in many characters who are reckoned religious, are ill calculated to do away the unfavorable opinions of men of an opposite way of thinking. As I presume that you, gentlemen, are not ignorant of the errors of my early life--error indeed is an appellation far too mild--I shall not scruple to own to you the source of those prejudices which r.e.t.a.r.ded my progress, even after I became ashamed of my deviations from virtue. I had felt the turpitude of my bad habits long before I had courage to renounce them; and I renounced them long before I had courage to avow my abhorrence of them."

Sir John and I expressed ourselves extremely obliged by the candor of his declaration, and a.s.sured him that his further communications would not only gratify but benefit us.

"Educated as I had been," said Mr. Carlton, "in an almost entire ignorance of religion, mine was rather a habitual indifference than a systematic unbelief. My thoughtless course of life, though it led me to hope that Christianity might not be true, yet had by no means been able to convince me that it was false. As I had not been taught to search for truth at the fountain, for I was unacquainted with the Bible, I had no readier means for forming my judgment than by observing, though with a careless and casual eye, what effect religion produced in those who professed to be influenced by it. My observations augmented my prejudices. What I saw of the professors increased my dislike of the profession. All the charges brought by their enemies, for I had been accustomed to weigh the validity of testimony, had not riveted my dislike so much as the difference between their own avowed principles and their obvious practice. Religious men should be the more cautious of giving occasion for reproach, as they know the world is always on the watch, and is more glad to have its prejudices confirmed than removed.

"I seize the moment of Mrs. Carlton's absence (who was just then called out of the room, but returned almost immediately) to observe, that what rooted my disgust was, the eagerness with which the mother of my inestimable wife, who made a great parade of religion, pressed the marriage of her only child with a man whose conduct she knew to be irregular, and of whose principles she entertained a just, that is, an unfavorable opinion. To see, I repeat, the religious mother of Mrs.

Carlton obviously governed in her zeal for promoting our union by motives as worldly as those of my poor father, who pretended to no religion at all, would have extremely lowered any respect which I might have previously been induced to entertain for characters of that description. Nor was this disgust diminished by my acquaintance with Mr.

Tyrrel. I had known him while a professed man of the world, and had at that time, I fear, disliked his violent temper, his narrow mind, and his coa.r.s.e manners, more than his vices.

"I had heard of the power of religion to change the heart, and I ridiculed the wild chimera. My contempt for this notion was confirmed by the conduct of Mr. Tyrrel in his new character. I found it had produced little change in him, except furnis.h.i.+ng him with a new subject of discussion. I saw that he had only laid down one set of opinions and taken up another, with no addition whatever to his virtues, and with the addition to his vices of spiritual pride and self-confidence; for with hypocrisy I have no right to charge any man. I observed that Tyrrel and one or two of his new friends rather courted attack than avoided it.

They considered discretion as the infirmity of a worldly mind, and every attempt at kindness or conciliation as an abandonment of faith. They eagerly ascribed to their piety the dislike which was often excited by their peculiarities. I found them apt to dignify the disapprobation which their singularity occasioned with the name of persecution. I have seen them take comfort in the belief that it was their religion which was disliked, when perhaps it was chiefly their oddities.

"At Tyrrel's I became acquainted with your friends Mr. and Mrs. Ranby. I leave you to judge whether their characters, that of the lady especially, was calculated to do away my prejudices. I had learned from my favorite Roman poet a precept in composition, of never making a G.o.d appear, except on occasions worthy of a G.o.d. I have since had reason to think this rule as justly theological as it is cla.s.sical. So thought not the Ranbys.

"It will, indeed, readily be allowed by every reflecting mind, as G.o.d is to be viewed in all his works, so his 'never-failing providence ordereth all things both in heaven and on earth.' But surely there is something very offensive in the indecent familiarity with which the name of G.o.d and Providence is brought in on every trivial occasion, as was the constant practice of Mr. and Mrs. Ranby. I was not even then so illogical a reasoner as to allow a general and deny a particular Providence. If the one were true, I inferred that the other could not be false. But I felt that the religion of these people was of a slight texture and a bad taste. I was disgusted with littleness in some instances, and with inconsistency in others. Still their absurdity gave me no right to suspect their sincerity.

"Whenever Mrs. Ranby had a petty inclination to gratify, she had always recourse to what she called the _leadings of Providence_. In matters of no more moment than whether she should drink tea with one neighbor instead of another, she was _impelled_, or _directed_, or _overruled_. I observed that she always took care to interpret these _leadings_ to her own taste, and under their sanction she always did what her fancy led her to do. She professed to follow this guidance on such minute occasions, that I had almost said her piety seemed a little impious. To the actual dispensations of Providence, especially when they came in a trying or adverse shape, I did not observe more submission than I had seen in persons who could not be suspected of religion. I must own to you also, that as I am rather fastidious, I began to fancy that vulgar language, quaint phrases, and false grammar, were necessarily connected with religion. The sacrifice of taste and elegance, seemed indispensable, and I was inclined to fear that if _they_ were right, it would be impossible to get to heaven with good English."

"Though I grant there is some truth in your remarks, sir," said I, "you must allow that when men are determined at all events to hunt down religious characters, they are never at a loss to find plausible objections to justify their dislike; and while they conceal, even from themselves, the real motive of their aversion, the vigilance with which they pry into the characters of men who are reckoned pious, is exercised with the secret hope of finding faults enough to confirm their prejudices."

"As a general truth, you are perfectly right," said Mr. Carlton; "but at the period to which I allude, I had now got to that stage of my progress, as to be rather searching for instances to invite than to repel me in my inquiry."

"You will grant, however," said I, "that it is a common effect of prejudice to transfer the fault of a religious man to religion itself.

Such a man happens to have an uncouth manner, an awkward gesture, an unmodulated voice; his allusions may be coa.r.s.e, his phraseology quaint, his language slovenly. The solid virtues which may lie disguised under these inc.u.mbrances go for nothing. The man is absurd, and therefore Christianity is ridiculous. Its truth, however, though it may be eclipsed, can not be extinguished. Like its divine Author, it is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever."

"There was another repulsive circ.u.mstance," replied Mr. Carlton: "the scanty charities both of Tyrrel and his new friends, so inferior to the liberality of my father and of Mr. Flam, who never professed to be governed by any higher motive than mere feeling, strengthened my dislike. The calculations of mere reason taught me that the religious man who does not greatly exceed the man of the world in his liberalities, falls short of him; because the worldly man who gives liberally, acts above his principle, while the Christian who does no more, falls short of his. And though I by no means insist that liberality is a certain indication of piety, yet I will venture to a.s.sert that the want of the one is no doubtful symptom of the absence of the other.

"I next resolved to watch carefully the conduct of another description of Christians, who come under the cla.s.s of the formal and the decent.

They were considered as more creditable, but I did not perceive them to be more exemplary. They were more absorbed in the world, and more governed by its opinions. I found them clamorous in defense of the church in words, but neither adorning it by their lives, nor embracing its doctrines in their hearts. Rigid in the observance of some of its external rites, but little influenced by its liberal principles, and charitable spirit. They venerated the establishment merely as a political inst.i.tution, but of her outward forms they conceived, as comprehending the whole of her excellence. Of her spiritual beauty and superiority, they seemed to have no conception. I observed in them less warmth of affection, for those with whom they agreed in external profession, than of rancor for those who differed from them, though but a single shade, and in points of no importance. They were cordial haters, and frigid lovers. Had they lived in the early ages, when the church was split into parties by paltry disputes, they would have thought the controversy about the time of keeping Easter of more consequence than the event itself, which that festival celebrates."

"My dear sir," said I, as soon as he had done speaking, "you have accounted very naturally for your prejudices. Your chief error seems to have consisted in the selection of the persons you adopted as standards.

They all differed as much from the right as they differed from each other; and the truth is, their vehement desire to differ from each other, was a chief cause why they departed so much from the right. But your instances were so unhappily chosen, that they prove nothing against Christianity. The two opposite descriptions of persons who deterred you from religion, and who pa.s.sed muster in their respective corps, under the generic term of religious, would, I believe, be scarcely acknowledged as such by the soberly and the soundly pious."

"My own subsequent experience," resumed Mr. Carlton, "has confirmed the justness of your remark. When I began, through the gradual change wrought in my views and actions, by the silent, but powerful preaching of Mrs. Carlton's example, to have less interest in believing that Christianity was false, I then applied myself to search for reasons to believe that it was true. But plain, abstract reasoning, though it might catch hold on beings who are all pure intellect, and though it might have given a right bias even to _my_ opinions, would probably never have determined my conduct, unless I saw it clothed, as it were, with a body.

I wanted examples which should influence me to act, as well as proofs which should incline me to believe; something which would teach me what to do, as well as what to think. I wanted exemplifications as well as precepts. I doubted of all merely speculative truth. I wanted, from beholding the effect, to refer back to the principle. I wanted arguments more palpable and less theoretic. Surely, said I to myself, if religion be a principle, it must be an operative one, and I would rationally infer that Christianity were true, if the tone of Christian practice were high.

"I began to look clandestinely into Henrietta's Bible. There I indeed found that the spirit of religion was invested with just such a body as I had wished to see; that it exhibited actions as well as sentiments, characters, as well as doctrines; the life portrayed evidently governed by the principle inculcated; the conduct and the doctrine in just correspondence. But if the Bible be true, thought I, may we not reasonably expect that the principles which once produced the exalted practice which that Bible records, will produce similar effects now?

"I put, rashly perhaps, the truth of Christianity on this issue, and sought society of a higher stamp. Fortunately the increasing external decorum of my conduct began to make my reception less difficult among good men than it had been. Hitherto, and that for the sake of my wife, my visits had rather been endured than encouraged; nor was I myself forward to seek the society which shunned me. Even with those superior characters with whom I did occasionally a.s.sociate, I had not come near enough to form an exact estimate.

"DISINTERESTEDNESS and CONSISTENCY had become with me a sort of touchstone, by which to try the characters I was investigating. My experiment was favorable. I had for some time observed my wife's conduct, with a mixture of admiration as to the act, and incredulity as to the motive. I had seen her foregoing her own indulgences, that she might augment those of a husband whom she had so little reason to love.

Here were the two qualities I required, with a renunciation of self without parade or profession. Still this was a solitary instance. When on a nearer survey, I beheld Dr. Barlow exhibiting by his exemplary conduct during the week, the best commentary on his Sunday's sermon: when I saw him refuse a living of nearly twice the value of that he possessed, because the change would diminish his usefulness, I was _staggered_.

"When I saw Mr. and Mrs. Stanley spending their time and fortune as entirely in acts of beneficence, as if they had built their eternal hope on charity alone, and yet utterly renouncing any such confidence, and trusting entirely to another foundation;--when I saw Lucilla, a girl of eighteen, refuse a young n.o.bleman of a clear estate, and neither disagreeable in his person or manner, on the single avowed ground of his loose principles; when the n.o.ble rejection of the daughter was supported by the parents, whose principles no arguments drawn from rank or fortune could subvert or shake--I was _convinced_.

"These, and some other instances of the same nature, were exactly the test I had been seeking. Here was _disinterestedness_ upon full proof.

Here was _consistency_ between practice and profession. By such examples, and by cordially adopting those principles which produced them, together with a daily increasing sense of my past enormities, I hope to become in time less unworthy of the wife to whom I owe my peace on earth, and my hope in heaven."

The tears which had been collecting in Mrs. Carlton's eyes for some time, now silently stole down her cheeks. Sir John and myself were deeply affected with the frank and honest narrative to which we had been listening. It raised in us an esteem and affection for the narrator which has since been continually augmenting. I do not think the worse of his state, for the difficulties which impeded it, nor that his advancement will be less sure, because it has been gradual. His fear of delusion has been a salutary guard. The apparent slowness of his progress has arisen from his dread of self-deception, and the diligence of his search is an indication of his sincerity.

"But did you not find," said I, "that the piety of these more correct Christians drew upon them nearly as much censure and suspicion as the indiscretion of the enthusiasts? and that the formal cla.s.s who were nearly as far removed from effective piety, as from wild fanaticism, ran away with all the credit of religion?'"

"With those," replied Mr. Carlton, "who are on the watch to discredit Christianity, no consistency can stand their determined opposition; but the fair and candid inquirer will not reject the truth, when it forces the truth on the mind with a clear and convincing evidence."

Though I had been joining in the general subject, yet my thoughts had wandered from it to Lucilla ever since her n.o.ble rejection of Lord Staunton had been named by Mr. Carlton as one of the causes which had strengthened his unsteady faith. And while he and Sir John were talking over their youthful connections, I resumed with Mrs. Carlton, who sat next me, the interesting topic.

"Lord Staunton," said she, "is a relation, and not a very distant one, of ours. He used to take more delight in Mr. Carlton's society when it was less improving than he does now, that it is become really valuable; yet he often visits us. Miss Stanley now and then indulges me with her company for a day or two. In these visits Lord Staunton happened to meet her two or three times. He was enchanted with her person and manners, and exerted every art and faculty of pleasing, which it must be owned he possesses. Though we should both have rejoiced in an alliance with the excellent family at the Grove, through this sweet girl, I thought it my duty not to conceal from her the irregularity of my cousin's conduct in one particular instance, as well as the general looseness of his religious principles. The caution was the more necessary, as he had so much prudence and good breeding, as to behave with general propriety when under our roof; and he allowed me to speak to him more freely than any other person. When I talked seriously, he sometimes laughed, always opposed, but was never angry.

"One day he arrived quite unexpectedly when Miss Stanley was with me. He found us in my dressing-room reading together a _Dissertation on the power of religion to change the heart_. Dreading some levity, I strove to hide the book, but he took it out of my hand, and glancing his eye on the t.i.tle, he said, laughing, 'This is a foolish subject enough; a _good heart_ does not want changing, and with a _bad_ one none of _us three_ have any thing to do.' Lucilla spoke not a syllable. All the light things he uttered, and which he meant for wit, so far from raising a smile, increased her gravity. She listened, but with some uneasiness, to a desultory conversation between us, in which I attempted to a.s.sert the power of the Almighty to rectify the mind, and alter the character. Lord Staunton treated my a.s.sertion as a wild chimera, and said, 'He was sure I had more understanding than to adopt such a methodistical notion;'

professing at the same time a vague admiration of virtue and goodness, which, he said, bowing to Miss Stanley, were _natural_ where they existed at all; that a good heart did not want mending, and a bad one could not be mended, with other similar expressions, all implying contempt of my position, and exclusive compliment to her.

"After dinner, Lucilla stole away from a conversation, which was not very interesting to her, and carried her book to the summer-house, knowing that Lord Staunton liked to sit long at table. But his lords.h.i.+p missing her for whom the visit was meant, soon broke up the party, and hearing which way she took, pursued her to the summer-house. After a profusion of compliments, expressive of his high admiration, he declared his pa.s.sion in very strong and explicit terms, and requested her permission to make proposals to her father, to which he conceived she could have no possible objection.

"She thanked him with great politeness for his favorable opinion, but frankly told him, that though extremely sensible of the honor he intended her, thanks were all she had to offer in return; she earnestly desired the business might go no further, and that he would spare himself the trouble of an application to her father, who always kindly allowed her to decide for herself in a concern of so much importance.

"Disappointed, shocked, and irritated at a rejection so wholly unexpected, he insisted on knowing the cause. Was it his person? Was it his fortune? Was it his understanding to which she objected? She honestly a.s.sured him it was neither. His rank and fortune were above her expectations. To his natural advantages there could be no reasonable objection. He still vehemently insisted on her a.s.signing the true cause.

She was then driven to the necessity of confessing that she feared his principles were not those of a man with whom she could venture to trust her own.