MISTRUST.
"I am so glad to have a little time for quiet conversation with you,
dear uncle," said Emmie, as the carriage in which she was seated beside
Arrows proceeded along the drive. "I want to ask you,"--she hesitated,
and her voice betrayed a little nervousness as she went on,--"what it
was that you meant when you bade me _conquer Mistrust_?"
"Let me refer you to our old favourite, the Pilgrim's Progress," replied
the captain. "In whose company did the dreamer represent Mistrust, when
he ran down the Hill of Difficulty to startle Christian with tidings of
lions in the way?"
"In the company of Timorous," said Emmie.
"And have you no acquaintance with that personage?" asked the captain.
"Oh, then you only mean that I am a little timid and nervous," said
Emmie, a good deal relieved. "That is no serious charge; you let me off
too easily."
"Not so fast, my dear child. Let us examine the allegorical personages
more closely. Timorous and Mistrust are not only found together, but
they are very closely related."
"You would not have me a Boadicea or a Joan of Arc?" asked Emmie,
smiling.
"I would have you--what you are--a gentle English maiden; but I would
have you _more_ than you now are,--that is to say, a trustful Christian
maiden," replied Captain Arrows.
"Surely courage is a natural quality, which belongs to some and not to
others," observed Emmie Trevor. "Besides, if it be a virtue at all, it
is surely a man's rather than a woman's."
"Mere physical courage, such as 'seeks the bubble reputation e'en in the
cannon's mouth,' is not a Christian virtue," said the captain; "it may
be displayed by infidel or atheist. The courage which _is_ a grace, a
grace to be cultivated and prayed for, is that childlike trust in a
Father's wisdom and love, by which the feeblest woman may glorify her
Maker."
"Faith in God's wisdom and love! Oh, you do not surely think that I am
so wicked as ever to doubt them! I have many faults, I know, but this
one--" Emmie stopped short, startled to find on her tongue almost the
very words which had been given as a sign that the bosom sin had been
tracked to its lurking-place.
"You remember," said Captain Arrows, "that a few days ago I listened to
your singing that fine hymn which begins with the lines,--
'Lord, it belongs not to my care
Whether I die or live.'"
"Yes," replied Emmie Trevor; "and you told me that, much as you admired
that hymn, you did not think it suited for my singing. I supposed that
you thought it too low for my voice."
"No, I thought it too high for your practice. Could it be consistently
sung by one who that morning had been in nervous terror at the scratch
of a kitten; one who owned that she would scarcely dare to nurse her
best friend through the small-pox; one who, even with my escort, could
not be persuaded to cross a field in which a few cows were grazing?"
"Oh, uncle, how can you take such trifles seriously!" cried Emmie, a
good deal hurt.
"Because I wish you to take them a little more seriously," replied
Captain Arrows. "You have hitherto regarded _unreasonable fear_ as an
innocent weakness, perhaps as something allied with feminine grace, and
not as a foe to be resisted and conquered. I see that fear is at this
time throwing a shadow over your path; that you would be happier if you
had the power wholly to cast it aside."
"I have not the power," said Emmie. The words had scarcely escaped her
lips when she wished them unspoken, for she was ashamed thus to plead
guilty to a feeling of superstitious alarm.
"Let us then trace the parentage of unreasonable fear," said Captain
Arrows. "I use the adjective advisedly. There are cases where the nerves
are so shattered by illness, or enfeebled by age, that fears come on the
mind, as fits on the body, not as a fault but as a heavy affliction.
There are also times of extreme and awful danger, such as that of the
Indian Mutiny, when faith must indeed have had a dread struggle with
fear; though even then, in the hearts of tender women, faith won the
victory still. But I am speaking of that fear which common sense would
condemn. Such fear is, must be, the offspring of mistrust, and its
effects show it to be a tempter and an enemy of the soul."
"What effects do you mean?" said Emmie.
"These three at least," answered the captain. "Unreasonable fear hinders
usefulness, destroys peace, and prevents our glorifying God."
"I do not quite see how it should do so," murmured Emmie.
"It hinders usefulness," said her uncle; "like indolence, fear is ever
seeing 'a lion in the street.' Does not fear hang like a clog on the
spirit, _making 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,'_ even when duty to God
and mercy to man is in question?"
Arrows paused as if for a reply. Emmie gave none; her eyes were gazing
out of the carriage window on the smoky veil which hung over the great
city which they were approaching; she knew that she dared not do, what
thousands of her sex are doing, go as a child of light to carry light
into the abodes of darkness. Emmie had owned in her uncle's presence
that she was far too timid to visit the poor.
"Then fear destroys peace," continued the captain, "and I believe that
it does so to a greater extent than does any other passion which
troubles the soul, remorse only excepted. If we literally and fully
obeyed the command so often repeated in Scripture, to hope and to be not
afraid, a mountain of misery would be removed at once and cast into the
sea. If you do not mind a personal application of the subject, would
you, my dear child, feel uneasy at going to a house which is called
haunted, if you realized that God fills all space, and that you are
everywhere under His loving protection?"
Emmie still continued silent, looking out of the carriage window. Her
feelings were those of deep mortification. That she, earnestly pious as
she was, should virtually be accused of want of faith, that her
deficiency in this first requisite of religion should have been so
glaring as to have attracted the notice of a partial relative, was a
trial the more painful from being totally unexpected.
"Bunyan represents Mistrust, the parent of unreasonable fear, as a
robber," pursued the captain, referring again to that allegory which
gives so wondrously true a picture of man's spiritual state. "We first
meet Mistrust in company with Timorous, and their object is to
discourage, to frighten, to make Christian start back from the perils
which would meet him if he pursued the path of duty; when we next hear
of Mistrust, he is in company with Guilt, and together they rob
Little-faith of his treasure."
"Yes, mistrust does rob us of our peace," said Emmie with a sigh.
"And now, let me touch on my third point, even at the risk of giving
some pain," said the captain. "Mistrust not only hinders usefulness, and
mars peace, but prevents our glorifying our Maker as we might otherwise
do. Is not the inconsistency of His children dishonouring to God? And is
it not inconsistent to avow our belief that our Heavenly Father loves
us--cares for us--is about our path and our bed, and yet to be as full
of unreasonable terrors as if, like the fool, we said 'there is no
God'? The Christian knows that Christ hath 'abolished death;' he knows
that to depart from earth is to enter into rest; that light, and life,
and glory await the redeemed of the Lord. Is it not inconsistent, I
repeat, in one who believes all this, to shrink with unconcealed terror
from the barest possibility that the time for his going home may be
hastened, even a little? The natural effect of strong faith would be to
make the righteous 'bold as a lion.'"
"Uncle, you judge me very hardly," murmured Emmie, ready to burst into
tears.
"I do not judge you, dear child; I only warn you not to cherish, as an
inmate, that enemy whom you have hitherto regarded but as a harmless
infirmity. Bring him before the bar of reason, bind him with the strong
cords of prayer. I have spoken thus frankly to you on this subject,
because I foresee that on your conquest of mistrust, your victory over
unreasonable fears, must depend much of your peace, happiness, and
usefulness also, in the new home to which you are going. A realizing
faith in God's presence, a simple trust in His love, these are the most
powerful antidotes against superstitious and all other ill-grounded
fears. The light that dispels shadows is the words, _I will fear no
evil, for Thou art with me_."
Captain Arrows had thus given to his sister's children his warning
against what, from close observation of their characters, he deemed to
be the besetting sin of each,--pride, selfishness, and mistrust. What
had been the effect of his words? The monitor had given offence, he had
given pain, and in one case, at least, his warning had been as the
dropping into a brook of a pebble, that scarcely causes even a ripple.
There are few who value gratuitous counsel; the many prefer to buy
experience, though it should prove to be at the price of future pain and
regret. We are seldom thankful to him who would explore for us the
heart's haunted chamber, even should we not possess the candour and
moral courage to search its depths for ourselves.