Mrs. Coleman refused to go out, and after breakfast Zachariah went by
himself, having first inquired what was a likely quarter. As he
wandered along much that had been before him again and again once
more recurred to him. He had been overtaken by calamity, and he had
not heard from his wife one single expression of sympathy, nor had he
received one single idea which could help him. She had thought of
nothing but herself, and even of herself not reasonably. She was not
the helpmeet which he felt he had a right to expect. He could have
endured any defect, so it seemed, if only he could have had love; he
could have endured the want of love if only he could have had a
counsellor. But he had neither, and he rebelled, questioning the
justice of his lot. Then he fell into the old familiar controversy
with himself, and it was curiously characteristic of him, that, as he
paced those dismal Manchester pavements, all their gloom disappeared
as he re-argued the universal problem of which his case was an
example. He admitted the unquestionable right of the Almighty to
damn three parts of creation to eternal hell if so He willed; why
not, then, one sinner like Zachariah Coleman to a weary pilgrimage
for thirty or forty years? He rebuked himself when he found that he
had all his life assented so easily to the doctrine of God's absolute
authority in the election and disposal of the creatures He had made,
and yet that he revolted when God touched him, and awarded him a
punishment which, in comparison with the eternal loss of His
presence, was as nothing.
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