Julian Home | Page 7

rewards he had never sought. Few, indeed, were the dioceses in which the clergy worked in a more hopeful spirit, in the certainty that the good bishop never suffered merit to pass unrecognised; and for talent and industry, no body of rectors could be compared to those whom Bishop Morris had chosen from the most deserving of the curates who were under his pastoral care.
Mr Home, after five years' hard work, had been promoted by the bishop to a small living, where he soon succeeded in winning the warmest affection of all his parishioners, and among others, of his squire and church-warden, the Earl of Raynes, who, from a feeling of sincere gratitude, procured for him, on the first opportunity, the rectory of Ildown.
Here, at the age of thirty, he settled down, with every intention of making it his home for life; and here he shortly after wooed and won the daughter of a neighbouring clergyman, whose only dower was the beauty of a countenance which but dimly reflected the inner beauty of her heart.
Very tranquil was their wedded life; very perfect was the peacefulness of their home. Under her hands the rectory garden became a many-coloured Eden, and the eye could rest delightedly on its lawns and flower-beds, even amid that glorious environment of woods and cliffs, free moors and open sea, which gave to the vicinity of Ildown such a nameless charm. But the beauty without was surpassed by the rarer sunshine of the life within and when children were born to them--when little steps began to patter along the hall, and young faces to shine beside the fire, and little strains of silvery laughter to ring through every room--there was a happiness in that bright family, for the sake of which an emperor might have been content to abdicate his throne. Oh that the river of human life could flow on for ever with such sparkling waters, and its margin be embroidered for ever with flowers like these.
Julian was their eldest son, and it added to the intensity of each parent's love for him to find that he seemed to have inherited the best qualities of them both. Their next child was Violet, and then, after two years' interval, came Cyril and Frank. The four children were educated at home, without even the assistance of tutor or governess, until Julian was thirteen years old; and during all that time scarcely one domestic sorrow occurred to chequer the unclouded serenity of their peace. Even without the esteem and respect of all their neighbours, rich and poor, the love of parents and children, brothers and sister, was enough for each heart there.
But the day of separation must come at last, however long we may delay it, and after Julian's thirteenth birthday it was decided that he must go to school. In making this determination, his father knew what he was about. He knew that in sending his son among a multitude of boys he was exposing him to a world of temptation, and placing him amid many dangers. Yet he never hesitated about it, and when his wife spoke with trembling anxiety of the things which she had heard and read about school-life, he calmly replied that without danger there can be no courage, and without temptation no real virtue or tried strength.
"Poor Julian," said Mrs Home, "but won't he be bullied dreadfully?"
"No, dear; the days of those atrocities about which you read in books are gone by for ever. At no respectable school, except under very rare and peculiar circumstances, are boys exposed to any worse difficulties in the way of cruelty than they can very easily prevent or overcome."
"But then those dreadful moral temptations," pleaded the mother.
"They are very serious, love. But is it not better that our boy should learn, by their means, (as thousands do), to substitute the manliness of self-restraint for the innocence of ignorance--even on the very false supposition that such an innocence can be preserved? And remember that he does not escape these temptations by avoiding them; from the little I have seen, it is my sincere conviction that for after-life, (even in this aspect alone, without alluding to the innumerable other arguments which must be considered), the education of a public school is a far sounder preparation than the shelter of home. I cannot persuade our neighbour Mrs Hazlet of this, but I should tremble to bring up Julian with no wider experience than she allows to her boy."
So Julian went to Harton, and, after a time, thoroughly enjoyed his life there, and was unharmed by the trials which must come to every schoolboy; so that when he came back for his first holidays, the mother saw with joy and pride that her jewel was not flawed, and remained undimmed in