TOM’S STORY.
My reader will perceive that this part of my story is drawing to a
close. It embraces but a brief period of my life, and I have plenty
more behind not altogether unworthy of record. But the portions of any
man’s life most generally interesting are those in which, while the
outward history is most stirring, it derives its chief significance
from accompanying conflict within. It is not the rapid change of
events, or the unusual concourse of circumstances that alone can
interest the thoughtful mind; while, on the other hand, internal change
and tumult can be ill set forth to the reader, save they be accompanied
and in part, at least, occasioned by outward events capable of
embodying and elucidating the things that are of themselves unseen. For
man’s life ought to be a whole; and not to mention the spiritual
necessities of our nature—to leave the fact alone that a man is a mere
thing of shreds and patches until his heart is united, as the Psalmist
says, to fear the name of God—to leave these considerations aside, I
say, no man’s life is fit for representation as a work of art save in
proportion as there has been a significant relation between his outer
and inner life, a visible outcome of some sort of harmony between them.
Therefore I chose the portion in which I had suffered most, and in
which the outward occurrences of my own life had been most interesting,
for the fullest representation; while I reserve for a more occasional
and fragmentary record many things in the way of experience, thought,
observation, and facts in the history both of myself and individuals of
my flock, which admit of, and indeed require, a more individual
treatment than would be altogether suitable to a continuous story. But
before I close this part of my communications with those whom I count
my friends, for till they assure me of the contrary I mean to flatter
myself with considering my readers generally as such, I must gather up
the ends of my thread, and dispose them in such a manner that they
shall neither hang too loose, nor yet refuse length enough for what my
friend Rogers would call splicing.
It was yet summer when Miss Oldcastle and I were married. It was to me
a day awful in its gladness. She was now quite well, and no shadow hung
upon her half-moon forehead. We went for a fortnight into Wales, and
then returned to the vicarage and the duties of the parish, in which my
wife was quite ready to assist me.
Perhaps it would help the wives of some clergymen out of some
difficulties, and be their protection against some reproaches, if they
would at once take the position with regard to the parishioners which
Mrs Walton took, namely, that of their servant, but not in her own
right—in her husband’s. She saw, and told them so, that the best thing
she could do for them was to help me, that she held no office whatever
in the parish, and they must apply to me when anything went amiss. Had
she not constantly refused to be a “judge or a divider,” she would have
been constantly troubled with quarrels too paltry to be referred to me,
and which were the sooner forgotten that the litigants were not drawn
on further and further into the desert of dispute by the mirage of a
justice that could quench no thirst. Only when any such affair was
brought before me, did she use her good offices to bring about a right
feeling between the contending parties, generally next-door neighbours,
and mostly women, who, being at home all day, found their rights clash
in a manner that seldom happened with those that worked in the fields.
Whatever her counsel could do, however, had full scope through me, who
earnestly sought it. And whatever she gave the poor, she gave as a
private person, out of her own pocket. She never administered the
communion offering—that is, after finding out, as she soon did, that it
was a source of endless dispute between some of the recipients, who
regarded it as their common property, and were never satisfied with
what they received. This is the case in many country parishes, I fear.
As soon as I came to know it, I simply told the recipients that,
although the communion offering belonged to them, yet the distribution
of it rested entirely with me; and that I would distribute it neither
according to their fancied merits nor the degree of friendship I felt
for them, but according to the best judgment I could form as to their
necessities; and if any of them thought these were underrated, they
were quite at liberty to make a fresh representation of them to me; but
that I, who knew more about their neighbours than it was likely they
did, and was not prejudiced by the personal regards which they could
hardly fail to be influenced by, was more likely than they were to
arrive at an equitable distribution of the money—upon my principles if
not on theirs. And at the same time I tried to show them that a very
great part of the disputes in the world came from our having a very
keen feeling of our own troubles, and a very dull feeling of our
neighbour’s; for if the case was reversed, and our neighbour’s
condition became ours, ten to one our judgment would be reversed
likewise. And I think some of them got some sense out of what I said.
But I ever found the great difficulty in my dealing with my people to
be the preservation of the authority which was needful for service; for
when the elder serve the younger—and in many cases it is not age that
determines seniority—they must not forget that without which the
service they offer will fail to be received as such by those to whom it
is offered. At the same time they must ever take heed that their claim
to authority be founded on the truth, and not on ecclesiastical or
social position. Their standing in the church accredits their offer of
service: the service itself can only be accredited by the Truth and the
Lord of Truth, who is the servant of all.
But it cost both me and my wife some time and some suffering before we
learned how to deport ourselves in these respects.
In the same manner she avoided the too near, because unprofitable,
approaches of a portion of the richer part of the community. For from
her probable position in time to come, rather than her position in time
past, many of the fashionable people in the county began to call upon
her—in no small degree to her annoyance, simply from the fact that she
and they had so little in common. So, while she performed all towards
them that etiquette demanded, she excused herself from the closer
intimacy which some of them courted, on the ground of the many duties
which naturally fell to the parson’s wife in a country parish like
ours; and I am sure that long before we had gained the footing we now
have, we had begun to reap the benefits of this mode of regarding our
duty in the parish as one, springing from the same source, and tending
to the same end. The parson’s wife who takes to herself authority in
virtue of her position, and the parson’s wife who disclaims all
connexion with the professional work of her husband, are equally out of
place in being parsons’ wives. The one who refuses to serve denies her
greatest privilege; the one who will be a mistress receives the greater
condemnation. When the wife is one with her husband, and the husband is
worthy, the position will soon reveal itself.
But there cannot be many clergymen’s wives amongst my readers; and I
may have occupied more space than reasonable with this “large
discourse.” I apologize, and, there is room to fear, go on to do the
same again.
As I write I am seated in that little octagonal room overlooking the
quarry, with its green lining of trees, and its deep central well. It
is my study now. My wife is not yet too old to prefer the little room
in which she thought and suffered so much, to every other, although the
stair that leads to it is high and steep. Nor do I object to her
preference because there is no ready way to reach it save through this:
I see her the oftener. And although I do not like any one to look over
my shoulder while I write—it disconcerts me somehow—yet the moment the
sheet is finished and flung on the heap, it is her property, as the
print, reader, is yours. I hear her step overhead now. She is opening
her window. Now I hear her door close; and now her foot is on the
stair.
“Come in, love. I have just finished another sheet. There it is. What
shall I end the book with? What shall I tell the friends with whom I
have been conversing so often and so long for the last thing ere for a
little while I bid them good-bye?”
And Ethelwyn bends her smooth forehead—for she has a smooth forehead
still, although the hair that crowns it is almost white—over the last
few sheets; and while she reads, I will tell those who will read, one
of the good things that come of being married. It is, that there is one
face upon which the changes come without your seeing them; or rather,
there is one face which you can still see the same through all the
shadows which years have gathered and heaped upon it. No, stay; I have
got a better way of putting it still: there is one face whose final
beauty you can see the mere clearly as the bloom of youth departs, and
the loveliness of wisdom and the beauty of holiness take its place; for
in it you behold all that you loved before, veiled, it is true, but
glowing with gathered brilliance under the veil (“Stop one moment, my
dear”) from which it will one day shine out like the moon from under a
cloud, when a stream of the upper air floats it from off her face.
“Now, Ethelwyn, I am ready. What shall I write about next?”
“I don’t think you have told them anywhere about Tom.”
“No more I have. I meant to do so. But I am ashamed of it.”
“The more reason to tell it.”
“You are quite right. I will go on with it at once. But you must not
stand there behind me. When I was a child, I could always confess best
when I hid my face with my hands.”
“Besides,” said Ethelwyn, without seeming to hear what I said, “I do
not want to have people saying that the vicar has made himself out so
good that nobody can believe in him.”
“That would be a great fault in my book, Ethelwyn. What does it come
from in me? Let me see. I do not think I want to appear better than I
am; but it sounds hypocritical to make merely general confessions, and
it is indecorous to make particular ones. Besides, I doubt if it is
good to write much about bad things even in the way of confession—-”
“Well, well, never mind justifying it,” said Ethelwyn. “_I_ don’t want
any justification. But here is a chance for you. The story will, I
think, do good, and not harm. You had better tell it, I do think. So if
you are inclined, I will go away at once, and let you go on without
interruption. You will have it finished before dinner, and Tom is
coming, and you can tell him what you have done.”
So, reader, now my wife has left me, I will begin. It shall not be a
long story.
As soon as my wife and I had settled down at home, and I had begun to
arrange my work again, it came to my mind that for a long time I had
been doing very little for Tom Weir. I could not blame myself much for
this, and I was pretty sure neither he nor his father blamed me at all;
but I now saw that it was time we should recommence something definite
in the way of study. When he came to my house the next morning, and I
proceeded to acquaint myself with what he had been doing, I found to my
great pleasure that he had made very considerable progress both in
Latin and Mathematics, and I resolved that I would now push him a
little. I found this only brought out his mettle; and his progress, as
it seemed to me, was extraordinary. Nor was this all. There were such
growing signs of goodness in addition to the uprightness which had
first led to our acquaintance, that although I carefully abstained from
making the suggestion to him, I was more than pleased when I
discovered, from some remark he made, that he would gladly give himself
to the service of the Church. At the same time I felt compelled to be
the more cautious in anything I said, from the fact that the prospect
of the social elevation which would be involved in the change might be
a temptation to him, as no doubt it has been to many a man of humble
birth. However, as I continued to observe him closely, my conviction
was deepened that he was rarely fitted for ministering to his fellows;
and soon it came to speech between his father and me, when I found that
Thomas, so far from being unfavourably inclined to the proposal, was
prepared to spend the few savings of his careful life upon his
education. To this, however, I could not listen, because there was his
daughter Mary, who was very delicate, and his grandchild too, for whom
he ought to make what little provision he could. I therefore took the
matter in my own hands, and by means of a judicious combination of
experience and what money I could spare, I managed, at less expense
than most parents suppose to be unavoidable, to maintain my young
friend at Oxford till such time as he gained a fellowship. I felt
justified in doing so in part from the fact that some day or other Mrs
Walton would inherit the Oldcastle property, as well as come into
possession of certain moneys of her own, now in the trust of her mother
and two gentlemen in London, which would be nearly sufficient to free
the estate from incumbrance, although she could not touch it as long as
her mother lived and chose to refuse her the use of it, at least
without a law-suit, with which neither of us was inclined to have
anything to do. But I did not lose a penny by the affair. For of the
very first money Tom received after he had got his fellowship, he
brought the half to me, and continued to do so until he had repaid me
every shilling I had spent upon him. As soon as he was in deacon’s
orders, he came to assist me for a while as curate, and I found him a
great help and comfort. He occupied the large room over his father’s
shop which had been his grandfather’s: he had been dead for some years.
I was now engaged on a work which I had been contemplating for a long
time, upon the development of the love of Nature as shown in the
earlier literature of the Jews and Greeks, through that of the Romans,
Italians, and other nations, with the Anglo-Saxon for a fresh
starting-point, into its latest forms in Gray, Thomson, Cowper, Crabbe,
Wordsworth, Keats, and Tennyson; and Tom supplied me with much of the
time which I bestowed upon this object, and I was really grateful to
him. But, in looking back, and trying to account to myself for the
snare into which I fell, I see plainly enough that I thought too much
of what I had done for Tom, and too little of the honour God had done
me in allowing me to help Tom. I took the high-dais-throne over him,
not consciously, I believe, but still with a contemptible
condescension, not of manner but of heart, so delicately refined by the
innate sophistry of my selfishness, that the better nature in me called
it only fatherly friendship, and did not recognize it as that
abominable thing so favoured of all those that especially worship
themselves. But I abuse my fault instead of confessing it.
One evening, a gentle tap came to my door, and Tom entered. He looked
pale and anxious, and there was an uncertainty about his motions which
I could not understand.
“What is the matter, Tom?” I asked.
“I wanted to say something to you, sir,” answered Tom.
“Say on,” I returned, cheerily.
“It is not so easy to say, sir,” rejoined Tom, with a faint smile.
“Miss Walton, sir—”
“Well, what of her? There’s nothing happened to her? She was here a few
minutes ago—though, now I think of it—”
Here a suspicion of the truth flashed on me, and struck me dumb. I am
now covered with shame to think how, when the thing approached myself
on that side, it swept away for the moment all my fine theories about
the equality of men in Christ their Head. How could Tom Weir, whose
father was a joiner, who had been a lad in a London shop himself, dare
to propose marrying my sister? Instead of thinking of what he really
was, my regard rested upon this and that stage through which he had
passed to reach his present condition. In fact, I regarded him rather
as of my making than of God’s.
Perhaps it might do something to modify the scorn of all classes for
those beneath them, to consider that, by regarding others thus, they
justify those above them in looking down upon them in their turn. In
London shops, I am credibly informed, the young women who serve in the
show-rooms, or behind the counters, are called LADIES, and talk of the
girls who make up the articles for sale as PERSONS. To the learned
professions, however, the distinction between the shopwomen and
milliners is, from their superior height, unrecognizable; while doctors
and lawyers are again, I doubt not, massed by countesses and other
blue-blooded realities, with the literary lions who roar at soirees and
kettle-drums, or even with chiropodists and violin-players! But I am
growing scornful at scorn, and forget that I too have been scornful.
Brothers, sisters, all good men and true women, let the Master seat us
where He will. Until he says, “Come up higher,” let us sit at the foot
of the board, or stand behind, honoured in waiting upon His guests. All
that kind of thing is worth nothing in the kingdom; and nothing will be
remembered of us but the Master’s judgment.
I have known a good churchwoman who would be sweet as a sister to the
abject poor, but offensively condescending to a shopkeeper or a
dissenter, exactly as if he was a Pariah, and she a Brahmin. I have
known good people who were noble and generous towards their so-called
inferiors and full of the rights of the race—until it touched their own
family, and just no longer. Yea I, who had talked like this for years,
at once, when Tom Weir wanted to marry my sister, lost my faith in the
broad lines of human distinction judged according to appearances in
which I did not even believe, and judged not righteous judgment.
“For,” reasoned the world in me, “is it not too bad to drag your wife
in for such an alliance? Has she not lowered herself enough already?
Has she not married far below her accredited position in society? Will
she not feel injured by your family if she see it capable of forming
such a connexion?”
What answer I returned to Tom I hardly know. I remember that the poor
fellow’s face fell, and that he murmured something which I did not
heed. And then I found myself walking in the garden under the great
cedar, having stepped out of the window almost unconsciously, and left
Tom standing there alone. It was very good of him ever to forgive me.
Wandering about in the garden, my wife saw me from her window, and met
me as I turned a corner in the shrubbery.
And now I am going to have my revenge upon her in a way she does not
expect, for making me tell the story: I will tell her share in it.
“What is the matter with you, Henry?” she asked.
“Oh, not much,” I answered. “Only that Weir has been making me rather
uncomfortable.”
“What has he been doing?” she inquired, in some alarm. “It is not
possible he has done anything wrong.”
My wife trusted him as much as I did.
“No—o—o,” I answered. “Not anything exactly wrong.”
“It must be very nearly wrong, Henry, to make you look so miserable.”
I began to feel ashamed and more uncomfortable.
“He has been falling in love with Martha,” I said; “and when I put one
thing to another, I fear he may have made her fall in love with him
too.” My wife laughed merrily.
“Whal a wicked curate!”
“Well, but you know it is not exactly agreeable.”
“Why?”
“You know why well enough.”
“At least, I am not going to take it for granted. Is he not a good
man?”
“Yes.”
“Is he not a well-educated man?”
“As well as myself—for his years.”
“Is he not clever?”
“One of the cleverest fellows I ever met”
“Is he not a gentleman?”
“I have not a fault to find with his manners.”
“Nor with his habits?” my wife went on.
“No.”
“Nor with his ways of thinking?”
“No.—But, Ethelwyn, you know what I mean quite well. His family, you
know.”
“Well, is his father not a respectable man?”
“Oh, yes, certainly. Thoroughly respectable.”
“He wouldn’t borrow money of his tailor instead of paying for his
clothes, would he?”
“Certainly not”
“And if he were to die to-day he would carry no debts to heaven with
him?”
“I believe not.”
“Does he bear false witness against his neighbour?”
“No. He scorns a lie as much as any man I ever knew.”
“Which of the commandments is it in particular that he breaks, then?”
“None that I know of; excepting that no one can keep them yet that is
only human. He tries to keep every one of them I do believe.”
“Well, I think Tom very fortunate in having such a father. I wish my
mother had been as good.”
“That is all true, and yet—”
“And yet, suppose a young man you liked had had a fashionable father
who had ruined half a score of trades-people by his extravagance—would
you object to him because of his family?”
“Perhaps not.”
“Then, with you, position outweighs honesty—in fathers, at least.”
To this I was not ready with an answer, and my wife went on.
“It might be reasonable if you did though, from fear lest he should
turn out like his father.—But do you know why I would not accept your
offer of taking my name when I should succeed to the property?”
“You said you liked mine better,” I answered.
“So I did. But I did not tell you that I was ashamed that my good
husband should take a name which for centuries had been borne by
hard-hearted, worldly minded people, who, to speak the truth of my
ancestors to my husband, were neither gentle nor honest, nor
high-minded.”
“Still, Ethelwyn, you know there is something in it, though it is not
so easy to say what. And you avoid that. I suppose Martha has been
talking you over to her side.”
“Harry,” my wife said, with a shade of solemnity, “I am almost ashamed
of you for the first time. And I will punish you by telling you the
truth. Do you think I had nothing of that sort to get over when I began
to find that I was thinking a little more about you than was quite
convenient under the circumstances? Your manners, dear Harry, though
irreproachable, just had not the tone that I had been accustomed to.
There was a diffidence about you also that did not at first advance you
in my regard.”
“Yes, yes,” I answered, a little piqued, “I dare say. I have no doubt
you thought me a boor.”
“Dear Harry!”
“I beg your pardon, wifie. I know you didn’t. But it is quite bad
enough to have brought you down to my level, without sinking you still
lower.”
“Now there you are wrong, Harry. And that is what I want to show you. I
found that my love to you would not be satisfied with making an
exception in your favour. I must see what force there really was in the
notions I had been bred in.”
“Ah!” I said. “I see. You looked for a principle in what you had
thought was an exception.”
“Yes,” returned my wife; “and I soon found one. And the next step was
to throw away all false judgment in regard to such things. And so I can
see more clearly than you into the right of the matter.—Would you
hesitate a moment between Tom Weir and the dissolute son of an earl,
Harry?”
“You know I would not.”
“Well, just carry out the considerations that suggests, and you will
find that where there is everything personally noble, pure, simple, and
good, the lowliness of a man’s birth is but an added honour to him; for
it shows that his nobility is altogether from within him, and therefore
is his own. It cannot then have been put on him by education or
imitation, as many men’s manners are, who wear their good breeding like
their fine clothes, or as the Pharisee his prayers, to be seen of men.”
“But his sister?”
“Harry, Harry! You were preaching last Sunday about the way God thinks
of things. And you said that was the only true way of thinking about
them. Would the Mary that poured the ointment on Jesus’s head have
refused to marry a good man because he was the brother of that Mary who
poured it on His feet? Have you thought what God would think of Tom for
a husband to Martha?”
I did not answer, for conscience had begun to speak. When I lifted my
eyes from the ground, thinking Ethelwyn stood beside me, she was gone.
I felt as if she were dead, to punish me for my pride. But still I
could not get over it, though I was ashamed to follow and find her. I
went and got my hat instead, and strolled out.
What was it that drew me towards Thomas Weir’s shop? I think it must
have been incipient repentance—a feeling that I had wronged the man.
But just as I turned the corner, and the smell of the wood reached me,
the picture so often associated in my mind with such a scene of human
labour, rose before me. I saw the Lord of Life bending over His bench,
fashioning some lowly utensil for some housewife of Nazareth. And He
would receive payment for it too; for He at least could see no disgrace
in the order of things that His Father had appointed. It is the vulgar
mind that looks down on the earning and worships the inheriting of
money. How infinitely more poetic is the belief that our Lord did His
work like any other honest man, than that straining after His
glorification in the early centuries of the Church by the invention of
fables even to the disgrace of his father! They say that Joseph was a
bad carpenter, and our Lord had to work miracles to set the things
right which he had made wrong! To such a class of mind as invented
these fables do those belong who think they honour our Lord when they
judge anything human too common or too unclean for Him to have done.
And the thought sprung up at once in my mind—“If I ever see our Lord
face to face, how shall I feel if He says to me; ‘Didst thou do well to
murmur that thy sister espoused a certain man for that in his youth he
had earned his bread as I earned mine? Where was then thy right to say
unto me, Lord, Lord?’”
I hurried into the workshop.
“Has Tom told you about it?” I said.
“Yes, sir. And I told him to mind what he was about; for he was not a
gentleman, and you was, sir.”
“I hope I am. And Tom is as much a gentleman as I have any claim to
be.”
Thomas Weir held out his hand.
“Now, sir, I do believe you mean in my shop what you say in your
pulpit; and there is ONE Christian in the world at least.—But what will
your good lady say? She’s higher-born than you—no offence, sir.”
“Ah, Thomas, you shame me. I am not so good as you think me. It was my
wife that brought me to reason about it.”
“God bless her.”
“Amen. I’m going to find Tom.”
At the same moment Tom entered the shop, with a very melancholy face.
He started when he saw me, and looked confused.
“Tom, my boy,” I said, “I behaved very badly to you. I am sorry for it.
Come back with me, and have a walk with my sister. I don’t think she’ll
be sorry to see you.”
His face brightened up at once, and we left the shop together.
Evidently with a great effort Tom was the first to speak.
“I know, sir, how many difficulties my presumption must put you in.”
“Not another word about it, Tom. You are blameless. I wish I were. If
we only act as God would have us, other considerations may look after
themselves—or, rather, He will look after them. The world will never be
right till the mind of God is the measure of things, and the will of
God the law of things. In the kingdom of Heaven nothing else is
acknowledged. And till that kingdom come, the mind and will of God
must, with those that look for that kingdom, over-ride every other way
of thinking, feeling, and judging. I see it more plainly than ever I
did. Take my sister, in God’s name, Tom, and be good to her.”
Tom went to find Martha, and I to find Ethelwyn.
“It is all right,” I said, “even to the shame I feel at having needed
your reproof.”
“Don’t think of that. God gives us all time to come to our right minds,
you know,” answered my wife.
“But how did you get on so far a-head of me, wifie?”
Ethelwyn laughed.
“Why,” she said, “I only told you back again what you have been telling
me for the last seven or eight years.”
So to me the message had come first, but my wife had answered first
with the deed.
And now I have had my revenge on her.
Next to her and my children, Tom has been my greatest comfort for many
years. He is still my curate, and I do not think we shall part till
death part us for a time. My sister is worth twice what she was before,
though they have no children. We have many, and they have taught me
much.
Thomas Weir is now too old to work any longer. He occupies his father’s
chair in the large room of the old house. The workshop I have had
turned into a school-room, of the external condition of which his
daughter takes good care, while a great part of her brother Tom’s time
is devoted to the children; for he and I agree that, where it can be
done, the pastoral care ought to be at least equally divided between
the sheep and the lambs. For the sooner the children are brought under
right influences—I do not mean a great deal of religious speech, but
the right influences of truth and honesty, and an evident regard to
what God wants of us—not only are they the more easily wrought upon,
but the sooner do they recognize those influences as right and good.
And while Tom quite agrees with me that there must not be much talk
about religion, he thinks that there must be just the more acting upon
religion; and that if it be everywhere at hand in all things taught and
done, it will be ready to show itself to every one who looks for it.
And besides that action is more powerful than speech in the inculcation
of religion, Tom says there is no such corrective of sectarianism of
every kind as the repression of speech and the encouragement of action.
Besides being a great help to me and everybody else almost in
Marshmallows, Tom has distinguished himself in the literary world; and
when I read his books I am yet prouder of my brother-in-law. I am only
afraid that Martha is not good enough for him. But she certainly
improves, as I have said already.
Jane Rogers was married to young Brownrigg about a year after we were
married. The old man is all but confined to the chimney-corner now, and
Richard manages the farm, though not quite to his father’s
satisfaction, of course. But they are doing well notwithstanding. The
old mill has been superseded by one of new and rare device, built by
Richard; but the old cottage where his wife’s parents lived has slowly
mouldered back to the dust.
For the old people have been dead for many years.
Often in the summer days as I go to or come from the vestry, I sit down
for a moment on the turf that covers my old friend, and think that
every day is mouldering away this body of mine till it shall fall a
heap of dust into its appointed place. But what is that to me? It is to
me the drawing nigh of the fresh morning of life, when I shall be young
and strong again, glad in the presence of the wise and beloved dead,
and unspeakably glad in the presence of my God, which I have now but
hope to possess far more hereafter.
I will not take a solemn leave of my friends just yet. For I hope to
hold a little more communion with them ere I go hence. I know that my
mental faculty is growing weaker, but some power yet remains; and I say
to myself, “Perhaps this is the final trial of your faith—to trust in
God to take care of your intellect for you, and to believe, in
weakness, the truths He revealed to you in strength. Remember that
Truth depends not upon your seeing it, and believe as you saw when your
sight was at its best. For then you saw that the Truth was beyond all
you could see.” Thus I try to prepare for dark days that may come, but
which cannot come without God in them.
And meantime I hope to be able to communicate some more of the good
things experience and thought have taught me, and it may be some more
of the events that have befallen my friends and myself in our
pilgrimage. So, kind readers, God be with you. That is the older and
better form of GOOD-BYE.