The Vicars Daughter | Page 6

nothing more just then, but let my father have
it all his own way for a while.]
_Father._--You see, this Percivale is an honest man. I don't exactly
know how he has been brought up; and it is quite possible he may have
had such evil instruction in Christianity that he attributes to it doctrines
which, if I supposed they actually belonged to it, would make me reject

it at once as ungodlike and bad. I have found this the case sometimes. I
remember once being astonished to hear a certain noble-minded lady
utter some indignant words against what I considered a very weighty
doctrine of Christianity; but, listening, I soon found that what she
supposed the doctrine to contain was something considered vastly
unchristian. This may be the case with Percivale, though I never heard
him say a word of the kind. I think his difficulty comes mainly from
seeing so much suffering in the world, that he cannot imagine the
presence and rule of a good God, and therefore lies with religion rather
than with Christianity as yet. I am all but certain, the only thing that
will ever make him able to believe in a God at all is meditation on the
Christian idea of God,--I mean the idea of God in Christ reconciling the
world to himself,--not that pagan corruption of Christ in God
reconciling him to the world. He will then see that suffering is not
either wrath or neglect, but pure-hearted love and tenderness. But we
must give him time, wife; as God has borne with us, we must believe
that he bears with others, and so learn to wait in hopeful patience until
they, too, see as we see.
And as to trusting our Wynnie with Percivale, he seems to be as good
as she is. I should for my part have more apprehension in giving her to
one who would be called a thoroughly religious man; for not only
would the unfitness be greater, but such a man would be more likely to
confirm her in doubt, if the phrase be permissible. She wants what
some would call homoeopathic treatment. And how should they be able
to love one another, if they are not fit to be married to each other? The
fitness, seems inherent to the fact.
_Mother._--But many a two love each other who would have loved
each other a good deal more if they hadn't been married.
_Father._--Then it was most desirable they should find out that what
they thought a grand affection was not worthy of the name. But I don't
think there is much fear of that between those two.
_Mother._--I don't, however, see how that man is to do her any good,
when you have tried to make her happy for so long, and all in vain.

_Father._--I don't know that it has been all in vain. But it is quite
possible she does not understand me. She fancies, I dare say, that I
believe every thing without any trouble, and therefore cannot enter into
her difficulties.
_Mother._--But you have told her many and many a time that you do.
_Father._--Yes: and I hope I was right; but the same things look so
different to different people that the same words won't describe them to
both; and it may seem to her that I am talking of something not at all
like what she is feeling or thinking of. But when she sees the troubled
face of Percivale, she knows that he is suffering; and sympathy being
thus established between them, the least word of the one will do more
to help the other than oceans of argument. Love is the one great
instructor. And each will try to be good, and to find out for the sake of
the other.
_Mother._--I don't like her going from home for the help that lay at her
very door.
_Father._--You know, my dear, you like the Dean's preaching much
better than mine.
_Mother._--Now, that is unkind of you!
_Father._--And why? [My father went on, taking no heed of my
mother's expostulation.] Because, in the first place, it is better; because,
in the second, it comes in a newer form to you, for you have got used to
all my modes; in the third place, it has more force from the fact that it
is not subject to the doubt of personal preference; and lastly, because he
has a large, comprehensive way of asserting things, which pleases you
better than my more dubitant mode of submitting them,--all very sound
and good reasons: but still, why be so vexed with Wynnie?
[My mother was now, however, so vexed with my father for saying she
preferred the Dean's preaching to his,--although I doubt very much
whether it wasn't true,--that she actually walked out