I need hardly say they were all religious writers; for
the keen conscience and obedient heart of the girl had made her very
early turn herself towards the quarter where the sun ought to rise,
the quarter where all night long gleams the auroral hope; but
unhappily she had not gone direct to the heavenly well in earthly
ground--the words of the Master himself. How could she? From very
childhood her mind had been filled with traditionary utterances
concerning the divine character and the divine plans--the merest
inventions of men far more desirous of understanding what they were
not required to understand, than of doing what they were required to
do--whence their crude and false utterances concerning a God of
their own fancy--in whom it was a good man's duty, in the name of
any possible God, to disbelieve; and just because she was true,
authority had immense power over her. The very sweetness of their
nature forbids such to doubt the fitness of others.
She had besides had a governess of the orthodox type, a large
proportion of whose teaching was of the worst heresy, for it was
lies against him who is light, and in whom is no darkness at all;
her doctrines were so many smoked glasses held up between the mind
of her pupil and the glory of the living God; nor had she once
directed her gaze to the very likeness of God, the face of Jesus
Christ.
Pages:
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147