Thomas Wingfold, Curate, vol 2 | Page 7

him again to-morrow? Art thon judging him now in the
very heart that within thy bosom sits hearing the words Judge not? Or

wilt thou ask yet again--Who is my neighbour? How then canst thou
look to be of those that shall enter through the gates into the city? I tell
thee not, for I profess not yet to know anything, but doth not thy own
profession of Christianity counsel thee to fall upon thy face, and cry to
him whom thou mockest, 'I am a sinful man, O Lord'?
"The Lord said: All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to
you, do ye even so to them. Ye that buy and sell, do you obey this law?
Examine yourselves and see. Ye would that men should deal fairly by
you; do you deal fairly by them as ye would count fairness in them to
you?--If conscience makes you hang the head inwardly, however you
sit with it erect in the pew, dare you add to your crime against the law
and the prophets the insult to Christ of calling yourselves his disciples?
"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the
kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in
heaven. He will none but those who with him do the will of the Father."

CHAPTER IV
.
NURSING.

I have of course given but the spine and ribs, as it were, of the sermon.
There is no place for more. It is enough however to show that he came
to the point--and what can be better in preaching? Certainly he was
making the best of the blunder that had led him up into that pulpit! And
on the other hand, whatever might be the various judgments and
opinions of his hearers in respect of the sermon--a thing about which
the less any preacher allows himself to think the better--many of them
did actually feel that he had been preaching to them, which is saying
much. Even Mrs. Ramshorn was more silent than usual as they went
home, and although--not having acquainted herself, amongst others,
with the sermons of Latimer--she was profoundly convinced that such
preaching was altogether contrary to the tradition, usage, and tone of
the English Church, of which her departed dean remained to her the
unimpeachable embodiment and type, the sole remark she made was,
that Mr. Wingfold took quite too much pains to prove himself a pagan.

Mr. Bascombe was in the same mind as before.
"I like the fellow," he said. "He says what he means, fair and full, and
no shilly-shallying. It's all great rubbish, of course!"
And the widow of the dean of blessed memory had not a word to say in
defence of the sermon, but, for her, let it go as the great rubbish he
called it. Indeed, not knowing the real mind of her nephew, she was
nothing less than gratified to hear from him an opinion so comfortably
hostile to that of this most uncomfortable of curates, whom you never
could tell where to have, and whom never since he had confessed to
wrong in the reading of his uncle's sermons, and thus unwittingly cast a
reproach upon the memory of him who had departed from the harassed
company of deans militant to the blessed company of deans triumphant,
had she invited to share at her table of the good things left behind.
"Why don't you ask him home to dinner, aunt?" said Bascombe, after a
pause unbroken by Mrs. Ramshorn.
"Why should I, George?" returned his aunt. "Has he not been abusing
us all at a most ignorant and furious rate?"
"Oh! I didn't know," said the nephew, and held his peace. Nor did the
aunt perceive the sarcasm for the sake of pointing which he was silent.
But it was not lost, and George was paid in full by the flicker of a faint
smile across Helen's face.
As for Helen, the sermon had indeed laid a sort of feebly electrical hold
upon her, the mere nervous influence of honesty and earnestness. But
she could not accuse herself of having ever made a prominent
profession of Christianity, confirmation and communion
notwithstanding; and besides, had she not now all but abjured the
whole thing in her heart? so that, if every word of what he said was true,
not a word of it could be applied to her! And what time had she to think
about such far-away things as had happened eighteen centuries ago,
when there was her one darling pining away with a black weight on his
heart!
For, although Leopold was gradually recovering, a supreme dejection,
for which his weakness was insufficient to account, prostrated his spirit,
and at length drove Mr.