It is not over a man,
whose one characteristic is grim fixity of purpose, that the
hearts of women are "incensed and kindled with a special
care," as it were over their natural children. In the strong
quiet patience of all his letters to the weariful Mrs. Bowes,
we may perhaps see one cause of the fascination he possessed
for these religious women. Here was one whom you could
besiege all the year round with inconsistent scruples and
complaints; you might write to him on Thursday that you were
so elated it was plain the devil was deceiving you, and again
on Friday that you were so depressed it was plain God had
cast you off for ever; and he would read all this patiently
and sympathetically, and give you an answer in the most
reassuring polysyllables, and all divided into heads - who
knows? - like a treatise on divinity. And then, those easy
tears of his. There are some women who like to see men
crying; and here was this great-voiced, bearded man of God,
who might be seen beating the solid pulpit every Sunday, and
casting abroad his clamorous denunciations to the terror of
all, and who on the Monday would sit in their parlours by the
hour, and weep with them over their manifold trials and
temptations. Nowadays, he would have to drink a dish of tea
with all these penitents. . . . It sounds a little vulgar, as
the past will do, if we look into it too closely.
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