"I wish I was a housemaid." "A housemaid, ma'am!" cried the girl, in almost horror. "Well, a lady's-maid. I mean, I'd like a life where my heaviest sorrow would be a refused leave to go out, or a sharp word or two for an ill-ironed collar. See who is that at the door; there's some one tapping there the last two minutes." "It's Miss Lucy, ma'am; she wants to know if she may come in?" Mrs. Sewell looked in the glass before which she was sitting, and as speedily passed her hands across her brow, and by the action seeming to chase away the stern expression of her eyes; then, rising up with a face all smiles, she rushed to the door and clasped Lucy in her arms, kissing her again and again, as she said, "I never dreamed of such happiness as this; but why didn't you come and awaken me? why did you rob me of one precious moment of your presence?" "I knew how tired and worn-out you were. Grandpapa has told me of all your unwearying kindness." uments that should have gone to him; but everything is irregular here. There was no master, and, worse, no mistress; but I'll hope, as they tell me here, that there will soon be one." "I don't know I have not heard." "What a diplomatic damsel it is! Why, child, can't you be frank, and say if you are coming back to live here? "I never suspected that I was in question at all; if I had, I'd have told you, as I tell you now, there is not the most remote probability of such an event. We are going back to live at The Nest. Sir Brook has bought it, and made it over to papa or myself- I don't know which, but it means the same in the sense I care for, that we are to be together again." "How delightful! I declare, child, my envy of you goes on increasing every minute. I never was able to captivate any man, old or young, who would buy a beautiful house and give it to me. Of all the fortunate creatures I ever heard or read of, you are the luckiest." "Perhaps I am. Indeed I own as much to myself when I bethink me how little I have contributed to my own good fortune." “And I,” said she, with a heavy sigh, "Come over to the light, child, and let me see you well. I'm wildly jealous of you, I must own, but I'll try to be fair and judge you honestly. My husband says you are the loveliest creature he ever saw; and I" about the most unlucky! I suppose I startdeclare I'm afraid he spoke truly. What have you done with your eyes? they are far darker than they used to be; and this hair you need not tell me it's all your own, child. Gold could not buy it. Yes, Jane, you are right; she is perfectly beautiful." "Oh, do not turn iny head with vanity," said Lucy, blushing. -- "I wish I could- I wish I could do anything to lesson any of your fascinations. Do you know it's very hard - very hard indeed to forgive any one being so beautiful, and hardest of all for me to do so?" "Why for you?" said Lucy, anxiously. "I'll tell you another time," said she, in a half-whisper, and with a significant glance at her maid, who, with the officiousness of her order, was taking far more than ordinary trouble to put things to rights." There, Jane," said her mistress at last, "all that opening and shutting of drawers is driving me distracted; leave everything as it is, and let us have quiet. Go and fetch me a cup of chocolate." 66 Nothing else, ma'am?” "Nothing; and ask if there are any letters for me. It's a dreadful house, Lucy, for sending one's letters astray. The Chief used to have scores of little scented notes sent up to him that were meant for me, and I used to get masses of formal-looking doc ed in life with almost as fair a promise as your own. Not so handsome, I admit. I had neither these long lashes nor that wonderful hair, that gives you a look of one of those Venetian beauties Giorgione used to paint; still less that lovely mouth, which I envy you more even than your eyes or your skin; but I was good-looking enough to be admired, and I was admired, and some of my admirers were very great folk indeed; but I rejected them all and married Sewell! I need not tell you what came of that. Poor papa foresaw it all. I believe it helped to break his heart; it might have broken mine too if I happened to have one. There, don't look horrified, darling. I wasn't born without one; but what with vanity and distrust, a reckless ambition to make figure in the world, and a few other like good qualities, I made of the heart that ought to have been the home of anything that was worthy in my nature, a scene of plot and intrigue, till at last I imagine it wore itself out, just as people do who have to follow uncongenial labour. It was like a lady set down to pick oakum! Why don't you laugh, dear, at my absurd simile?" "Because you frighten me," said Lucy, almost shuddering. "I'm certain," resumed the other, "I was very like yourself when I was married. I latterly, and the strong-minded race always impart some of their hardness to the women who associate with them. You'll have to come down to silly creatures like me, Lucy, to regain your softness." "I shall be delighted if you let me keep your company." "We will be sisters, darling, if you will only be frank with me." "Prove me if you like; ask me anything you will, and see if I will not answer you freely." "Have you told me all your Cagliari life had been very carefully brought up - had excellent governesses, and was trained in all the admirable discipline of a well-ordered family. All I knew of life was the good side. I saw people at church on Sundays, and fancied that they wore the same tranquil and virtuous faces throughout the week. Above all things I was trustful and confiding. Colonel Sewell soon uprooted such delusions. He believed in nothing nor in any one. If he had any theory at all of life, it was that the world consisted of wolves and lambs, and that one must make an early choice which flock he would belong to. I'm ashamed to own what a zest it gave to existence to feel that the whole thing was a great game in which, by the exercise of skill and cleverness, one might be almost sure to win. He soon made me as impassioned a gambler as himself, as ready to risk anything-everything- - on the issue. But I have made you quite ill, child, with this dark revela- "Come - I never beat about the bush tion; you are pale as death.” tell me one thing — it's a very abrupt way "No, I am only frightened—frightened to ask, but perhaps it's the best way - are and grieved." you going to be married?" "Don't grieve for me," said the other, haughtily. "There is nothing I couldn't more easily forgive than pity. But let me turn from my odious self and talk of you. I want you to tell me everything about your fortune, where you have been all this time, what seeing and doing, and what is the vista in front of you?" Lucy gave a full account of Cagliari and her life there, narrating how blank their first hopes had been, and what a glorious fortune had crowned them at last. "I'm afraid to say what the mine returns at present; and they say it is a mere nothing to what it may yield when improved means of working are employed, new shafts sunk, and steam power engaged." "Don't get technical, darling; I'll take your word for Sir Brook's wealth; only tell me what he means to do with it. You know he gambled away one large fortune already, and squandered another, nobody knows how. Has he gained anything by these experiences to do better with the third? "I have only heard of his acts of munificence or generosity," said Lucy, gravely. "What a reproachful face to put on, and for so little!' said the other, laughing. "You don't think that when I said he gambled I thought the worse of him.” "Perhaps not; but you meant that I should." "You are too sharp in your casuistry; but you have been living with only men - all?" "I think so; all at least that was worth telling." "You had a shipwreck on your island, we heard here; are such events so frequent that they make slight impression?" "I was but speaking of ourselves and our fortunes," said Lucy; "my narrative was all selfish." "I don't know," said she; and her face and neck became crimson in a moment. "You don't know! Do you mean that you're like one of those young ladies in the foreign convents who are sent for to accept a husband whenever the papas and mammas have agreed upon the terms?" "Not that; but I mean that I am not sure whether grandpapa will give his consent, and without it, papa will not either.” "And why should not grandpa say yes? Major Trafford - we needn't talk riddles to each other -Major Trafford has a good position, a good name, and will have a good estate- are not these the three gifts the mothers of England go in pursuit of?" "His family, I suspect, wish him to look higher; at all events they don't like the idea of an Irish daughter-in-law." "More fools they! Irish women, of the better class, are more ready to respond to good treatment, and less given to resent bad usage, than any I ever met." "Then I have just heard since I came over that Lady Trafford has written to grandpapa in a tone of such condescension and gentle sorrow, that it has driven him half crazy. Indeed, his continual inference from the letter is What must the son of such a woman be!" 66 That's most unfair!" "So they have all told him-papa, and Beattie, and even Mr. Haire, who met Lionel one morning at Beattie's." 66 Perhaps I might be of service here; what a blush, child! dear me, you are crim- the deposit; but it is a great mistake, as he son, far too deep for beauty. How I have has found by this time. But don't let this fluttered the dear little bird, but I'm not going to rob its nest, or steal its mate away. All I meant was, that I could exactly contribute that sort of worldly testimony to the goodness of the match that old people like and ask for. You must never talk to them about affections, nor so much as allude to tastes or tempers; never expatiate on anything that cannot be communicated by parchment, and attested by proper witnesses. Whatever is not subject to stampduty, they set down as mere moonshine." While she thus ran on, Lucy's thoughts never strayed from a certain letter which had once thrown a dark shadow over her, and even yet left a gloomy memory behind it. The rapidity with which Mrs. Sewell spoke, too, had less the air of one carried away by the strong current of feeling than of a speaker who was uttering everything, anything, to relieve her own overburdened mind. "You look very grave, Lucy," went she on. "I suspect I know what's passing in that little brain. You are doubting if I should be the fittest person to employ on the negotiation; come, now, confess it." "You have guessed aright," said Lucy, gravely. "But all that's past and over, child. The whole is a mere memory now, if even so much. Men have a trick of thinking, once they have interested a woman on their behalf, that the sentiment survives all changes of time and circumstance, and that they can come back after years and claim make you unhappy, dear; there never was less cause for unhappiness. It is just of these sort of men the model husbands are made. The male heart is a very tough piece of anatomy, and requires a good deal of manipulation to make it tender, and, as you will learn one day. it is far better all this should be done before marriage than after. Well, Jane, I did begin to think you had forgotten about the chocolate. It is about an hour since I asked for it." "Indeed, ma'am, it was Mr. Chaytor's fault; he was a-shooitng rabbits with another gentleman." "There, there, spare me Mr. Chaytor's diversions, and fetch me some sugar." "Mr. Lendrick and another gentleman, ma'am, is below, and wants to see Miss Lucy." "A young gentleman, Jane?" asked Mrs. Sewell, while her eyes flashed with a sudden fierce brilliancy. "No, ma'am, an old gentleman, with a white beard, very tall and stern to look at." "We don't care for descriptions of old gentlemen, Jane. Do we, Lucy? Must you go, darling?" "Yes; papa perhaps wants me." "Come back to me soon, pet. Now that we have no false barriers between us, we can talk in fullest confidence." Lucy hurried away, but no sooner had she reached the corridor than she burst into tears. · Ir was said a great many centuries ago, and in a book of very high authority, that one result of the coming of Christ into the world would be that the thoughts of many hearts should be revealed.' And though such a result is not without its parallels and analogies in other cases, there is no other case in which either the disclosures of men's characters have been so. searching and profound, or in which the effect has been so certainly repeated whenever a fresh interest has been awakened in the person and history of the great Teacher. The consequence is, that no epochs are better adapted for taking a review of the state of religious opinion than those in which popular attention has been strongly fixed upon the Life of Christ.' With other religious questions it is possible to fence and play, and act a part, whether in defence or opposition, as the case may be; feeling all the time, with the medieval disputant, how easy it might be to shift one's ground and take up the brief for the other side. But this question is too closely intertwined with men's personal feelings and hopes for that. It is no matter of gladiatorial display. It is a matter of life and death. And, therefore, interesting as it may always be, even at times when men are following each other like a flock of sheep along some narrow path of dogma, to try and understand the meaning of the dogma which unlocks the history of their period, that interest culminates at times when the life of Jesus is in question when men are thoroughly alive, and thoroughly in earnest; when reserve and reticence are broken through; and when the books, reviews, and pamphlets of any one year may easily offer (as it were, in section) a complete conspectus of all the main lines of contemporary thought. Such a period, there can be no doubt, is our own. Never since the time of the Reformation— never, one might almost say, since the time of the Apostles - has a more earnest attention been paid to the life of Jesus than at the present moment. There have been controversies without number as to His nature, confusions without end as to His doctrine, conflicts interminable about His Church, but to the present generation (strange to say) seems to have been bequeathed the task of arranging in an intelligible form the facts of His purely human history. The reason probably is, that never before have systems of belief foreign, yet analogous, to Christianity been so clearly understood, or so much vigorous intelligence been diverted from policy and war to a critical handling of classical, and still more of Oriental, modes of thought. Thus the desire of understanding the origin of Christianity, and the means of gratitying that desire, seem to have presented themselves simultaneously: and the impatience of mankind will bear no compromise, and take no refusal, until theologians have fairly girded themselves to the task of presenting the human life of Jesus in some strictly historical shape. The difficulty of this task is probably least understood by those who most loudly make the demand. Were an invasion of England to shatter at one blow the framework of the State, to destroy the metropolis, and involve in common ruin the civil and ecclesiastical institutions of the country, it is not likely that for the next thirty or forty years, at least, much literary activity would be displayed, or any work be bequeathed to posterity except writings intended for an immediate practical purpose. But if by chance some fragment or offshoot of the National Church had vigour enough to outlive the catastrophe, its first energies would be devoted to collecting the memorials of its earlier and more tranquil days, and especially to forming into a sort of canon for future reference all the writings which a hasty criticism could select as the genuine relics of its first founders. fact, no course at such a time could be more consonant to sound sense and simple fidelity. But the crisis which we have supposed was far exceeded in severity by that fearful crash which ruined the Jewish State, destroyed the Temple, and scattered the population of Judæa, not very long after the first preaching of the Gospel. For the small geographical scale of Palestine — a country about as large as Wales rendered the calamity more intense by concentrating it in that narrow area, and the furious passions that blazed out at the revolt would not for a long time cool down to the tempera - In * ture of literary composition. Moreover, in | it is dogmatism to state boldly as an axiom this case, the inhabitants of the country were what is so far from being self-evident that sown broadcast over the world. Every it is denied by the whole opposing party, and slave-market in three continents, was full if it is dogmatism to select for this axiom of them. And although it is true that the very point which, clothed in other these outcasts would find synagogues and words, is the proposition to be proved, then settled communities of Jews wherever they MM. Renan and Strauss are dogmatists. went, still, the blow having crushed the For while the very point in dispute is, political and religious hopes of all alike whether Jesus was a superhuman personwith the sole exception of the Christian age or not, both of these writers lay it sect - it is likely that the only efforts of down as the first postulate in their argument the pen which would be left from this that no superhuman hypothesis is admisepoch would be, on the one hand, Jewish sible. Their argument therefore becomes and Christian collections of existing tradi- neither more nor less than a vicious miracle. tions, with occasional reflective attempts to The Gospels are untrustworthy, because find a key to the terrible events of the past; they record miracles; and no miracles are and, on the other, fugitive pieces of a hortatory credible, because the books that record or polemical character. Now this is exactly them are untrustworthy. It is wonderful what we do find. The Mishna and the that men of so much ability should be New Testament are the collection of tradi- guilty of such false logic, and should at this tions, written or otherwise. Josephus' His- time of day be beguiled by the threadbare tory at Rome, St. John's Gospel at Eph- sophism of Hume, of which Strauss thinks esus, and probably the fourth Book of so highly as to say: Hume's treatment of Esdras in the far East, are works of reflec- miracles is so universally convincing, that by tion, searches, for the key to the past. And it the matter may be considered as virtually the remains of apostolical fathers and of settled.' (P. 148) Yet Hume's celebrated Judæognostic heretics are specimens of argument is a mere petitio principii. All pieces inspired by a special purpose, and experience [i. e. for the most part, testisingularly barren of any important histor- mony of others], being against miracles, it ical materials. When we add to all this the is more likely that testimony should be fact, that just at this period of the world, false than that miracles should be true. amid the slow but sure advance of universal Which is the same thing as saying, All decrepitude and decay, the most singular experience being against Atlantic cables, it rage had seized mankind for pseudonymous is far more likely that Messrs. Glasse and composition, we have said enough to in- Field are playing upon our credulity than dicate that the historian of those times that the cable should be laid.' The reply must walk warily, and be prepared to fore- of course is, But the cable is laid, for we go too hasty generalizations, and that the have the results in our hands and your demand for a prompt and unimpeachable argument from experience' is good for account of all that Jesus and His Apostles nothing, for unless it carefully keeps the did and said is made in profound igno- experience of Messrs. Glasse and Field out rance of the real conditions of the problem. of sight, it is inconclusive; and if it does, Still, men are always to be found, armed it amounts to saying, 'The experience of with more or less of learning and critical all, except those who have had the experience, acumen, who will be prepared straightway is against Atlantic telegraphs.' Just so the to give an answer to the most impossible Christian apologist may reply: Your arguquestions. To them patience seems no scientific virtue at all. And when they have lit upon some plausible solution of their problem, open at a hundred points to fatal assaults, disdaining to hold it as a mere hypothesis rough-hewn for after rectification, they must needs impose it upon the world as the one and only possible key to the whole question. In a word, they dogmatise. And strongly as both of them would repudiate the charge, we are sorry to be obliged to fix upon M. Renan as well as upon Herr Strauss this odious imputation of dogmatism. If it is dogmatism to found one's whole argument upon an ipse dixit, if : Compare, for instance, the following passages: - (1.) So long as the Gospels are regarded as historical sources, in the strict sense of the word, so long a historical view of the life of Jesus is impossible (Strauss, p. 40); for historical enquiry refuses absolutely to recognise anywhere any such thing as a miracle. (P. 146.) (2.) In the person and work of Jesus nothing supernatural happened; for thus much we can soon discover about our Gospels, that neither all nor any of them display such historical trustworthiness as to compel our reason to the acceptance of a miracle.' (P. xv.) Similarly M. Renan:-(1.) The first twelve chapters of Acts are a tissue of miracles. Now, an absolute rule of criticism is, to allow no place in historical narration to miracles. (P. xliii.) (2.) mit them.... The onus probandi in science rests 'Show me a specimen of these things, and I will adwith those who allege a fact.' (P. xlv.) |