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The Demon of Darkness in the character of a moral "Will of the Wisp " was leading poor Henry to his destruction. Not more anxious the benighted traveller to find his lost road, when he follows the deceitful gleam that entices him to his death, than this truth-seeker following the Spirit of Lies disguised as an Angel of Light. Unhappy man, he knew not then of the pole-star whose guidance was infallible; with all his learning, he could not read the heavens enough for that.

He read the essay, and ere he had concluded the perusal, resolved to quit Risworth and abandon himself to the search for truth.

It was hard for Lucy to leave the good people, and the pretty village and its work behind, but she felt Henry must be unfettered in his course of action, and it was little she could do for him in his trouble, but pray and hope. So Risworth fades from our story.

CHAPTER XX.

BENIGHTED.

THEY went to London.

Henry would have a holiday, and wait awhile ere he looked out for more work. Of course his friends were astonished at his leaving; all sorts of reasons were imagined and given out for the step. For his own part he was little disposed to satisfy them as to the real cause. Dr. Smith, however, must know; it was useless to conceal it from him. It was the old story. He was not the least surprised, though he affected to be; he was used to

defection. It was discouraging, certainly, to train men who so persistently carried his mild, timid teaching to its logical consequences. It was bad enough to be always expelling men for downright immorality, it was worse when the men of real principle or sterling worth constantly left the Baptist faith, becoming Independents, Churchmen, and not unfrequently downright Sceptics. It was the old story; they all began by "truth-seeking," and ended by denying everything it was the object of his college to teach. It was causing him the most intense anxiety, for he feared it was partly his own fault, and he feared the outside world, especially the supporters of the college, would find it out. Of course it was concealed as much as possible. It never appeared in the annual report. Nothing was said of it at Exeter Hall. It was only whispered about in the college itself. When the first year men heard about it, they trembled and were indignant. When the second year men heard of it, they were puzzled but not quite so angry. The third year men looked at one another significantly but did not say much, it was evident they were not surprised. The men in their last year openly sympathized with the outcasts; some wondered when their turn would come, for they seemed to feel it would end by being their fate. They shuddered a little at the thought of the isolation they would have to suffer, but they felt it was a noble thing to dare so much for truth, and wrote kindly words to them accordingly. So one by one, the Principal having reared his brood, found it leaving him unthanked, and by some despised. Such is ever the

fate of those who attempt to teach without dogma. Darker and still more dark grew the mental history of our young minister. It is easy to talk of leaving

the ship when the sea is calm, and one is satiated with the society of men; it is altogether another thing when out alone on the waste of waters in the gloom of night, when the storm is rising and you know you have neither compass, nor anchor, nor food, nor hope. Such was his fate, alas! not that of the first of his class by many. The condition of such an one is very peculiar; cut adrift from his fellows, virtually if not actually out of communion with his sect, he had no companions, for he could join no other. He knew of no sect he could ever think of joining; he knew of no companions who exactly held his opinions. Some were more advanced than he, others had not ventured so far yet; he was alone, and daily the sense of his loneliness grew more painful. He gave up prayer. To pray, one must have a concrete idea of a Supernatural Being. You can't pray to an abstraction. It was no new thing to him, the idea of a prayerless life. He was appalled when he heard a very advanced companion at college declare openly he had given up long ago "the absurd practice of flopping on his knees night and morning against his bed, and praying to the counterpane." He knew many who ridiculed the idea of prayer altogether, it was unscientific, possibly harmless, but certainly useless. So when he came to rise without seeking God's blessing on the day, and to go to rest without asking God's pardon on the sins he had committed, he only behaved as an "advanced" man always behaved, and felt accordingly he was being qualified for the title.

The destructive school of philosophy had completed the undoing of Pattison, once the ardent and enthusiastic worker for God, as far as his light went, in the homes and haunts of sin and misery; and what had it given him for the peace of mind, ay, the pure

joys it had robbed him of? What had he become ! Was he a fit teacher of men; was this the state of mind in which to call men to higher and nobler things than self and the world? A fine standpoint this from which to effect the amelioration of the human race!

How often deep down in his heart he lamented he had not been born a ploughman, a neat-herd, with no soul above the simple faith he possessed as a child. Then he would rouse himself and say with Tennyson over and over again—

"There is more faith in honest doubt,

Believe me, than in half the creeds."

Ah, yes, this is all very well for yourself, Mr. Henry, but then how about your miserable fellow-creatures that you have got to ameliorate, you know? How often you have told yourself you have a mission! Ay, and have proved it too! Sinners have heard and obeyed your call to virtue; the drunkard, the groveller in low and mean vices, has turned under your instruction ad meliora, has set to work to climb the heavenly way, and his Excelsior is delighting the angels, while you, poor Henry, are speculating whether you can or cannot get as far as your "Credo in unum Deum !" This is a fall indeed. Well, you have honesty and you have earnestness. You are good at bottom, my hero. God will not let you perish. You are vain and silly, poor man, and when you have got to the darkest point, light will begin to dawn.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE STORM.

HE was too active to live an idle life, some work he must do; preach he could not, the very thought of a pulpit was horrible to him. Some literary work he must do, so he obtained it with an old friend on a very "advanced" Review that had just been started, and this filled up his time very well. He was not altogether miserable, for had he not Lucy-Lucy whom as his own soul he loved? Dear Lucy that so silently noticed all his trouble and could do so little to help him, she was so weak against those doubts and mental difficulties of his. How often she would take his hand, and look into his eyes, and pray, oh, so earnestly, that God who was very near and very real to her, would help him over his difficulties and give him light at last. He loved her simple faith, is it not ever so? We always look up to and reverence the better, though we follow the worse! Ah, Lucy, you did a very great deal more to help the wanderer than you thought. You never knew how many a brilliant and startling passage in some of the latest anti-Christian books he read, your sweet, trusting, loving, religious life served to secretly neutralize. We don't know a hundredth part of the forces that influence secretly and silently our modes of thought, our actions, and our principles, though we fancy we rule them as we will. So Lucy was the one grain of salt that preserved his soul from utter decay.

While he had her, he had one friend to whom he could open his heart and be sure to find sympathy; and so for months he went on, doubting and wonder

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