hand, into the truth of what the dominie said — that it was the noblest of martyrdoms to the man who, sent by God, loved the truth with his whole soul, and was never happier than when bearing witness to it, except, indeed, in those blessed moments when receiving it of the Father. In consequence of this opening of his eyes the youth recoiled with dismay from the sacrilegious mockery of which he had been guilty in meditating the presumption of teaching holy things, of which the sole sign that he knew anything was now afforded by this same recoil. At last he was not far from the kingdom of heaven, though whether he was to be sent to persuade men that that kingdom was amongst them, and must be in them, remained a question.
On the morning after the latter of those two sermons, Frederick, as they sat at breakfast, succeeded, with no small effort — for he feared his mother — in blurting out to his father the request that he might be taken into the counting-house; and when indignantly requested, over the top of the teapot, to explain himself, declared that he found it impossible to give his mind to a course of education which could only end in the disappointment of his parents, seeing he was at length satisfied that he had no call to the ministry. His father was not displeased at the thought of having him at the shop, but his mother was for some moments speechless with angry tribulation. Recovering herself, with scornful bitterness she requested to know to what tempter he had been giving ear, for tempted he must have been ere son of hers would have been guilty of backsliding from the cause — of taking his hand from the plough and looking behind him. The youth returned such answers as, while they satisfied his father he was right, served only to convince his mother, where yet conviction was hardly needed, that she had to thank the dominie for his defection, his apostasy from the Church to the world.
Incapable of perceiving that now first there was hope of a genuine disciple in the child of her affection, she was filled with the gall of disappointment, and with spite against the man who had taught her son how worse than foolish it is to aspire to teach before one has learned; nor did she fail to cast scathing reflections on her husband, in that he had brought home a viper in his bosom, a wolf into his fold, the wretched minion of a worldly Church, to lead her son away captive at his will; and partly no doubt from his last uncomfortable sermons, but mainly from the play of Mrs. Marshal's tongue on her husband's tympanum, the deacons in full conclave agreed that no further renewal of the invitation to preach "for them" should be made to the schoolmaster — just the end of the business Mr. Graham had expected, and for which he had provided. On Tuesday morning he smiled to himself, and wondered whether, if he were to preach in his own schoolroom the next Sunday evening, any one would come to hear him. On Saturday he received a cool letter of thanks for his services, written by the ironmonger in the name of the deacons, enclosing a cheque tolerably liberal as ideas went, in acknowledgment of them. The cheque Mr. Graham returned, saying that, as he was not a preacher by profession, he had no right to take fees. It was a half-holiday: he walked up to Hampstead Heath, and was paid for everything, in sky and cloud, fresh air and a glorious sunset.
When the end of her troubled week came, and the Sunday of her expectation brought lovely weather, with a certain vague suspicion of peace, into the regions of Mayfair and Spitalfields, Clementina walked across the Regent's Park to Hope Chapel and its morning observances, but thought herself poorly repaid for her exertions by having to listen to a dreadful sermon and worse prayers from Mr. Masquar, one of the chief priests of Commonplace — a comfortable idol to serve, seeing he accepts as homage to himself all that any man offers to his own person, opinions, or history. But Clementina contrived to endure it, comforting herself that she had made a mistake in supposing Mr. Graham preached in the morning.
In the evening, her carriage once again drew up with clang and clatter at the door of the chapel. But her coachman was out of temper at having to leave the bosom of his family circle — as he styled the table that upheld his pot of beer and jar of tobacco — of a Sunday, and sought relief to his feelings in giving his horses a lesson in crawling; the result of which was fortunate for his mistress: when she entered the obnoxious Mr. Masquar was already reading the hymn. She turned at once and made for the door.
But her carriage was already gone. A strange sense of loneliness and desolation seized her. The place had grown hateful to her, and she would have fled from it. Yet she lingered in the porch. The eyes of the man in the pulpit, with his face of false solemnity and low importance — she
