This mortar, probably they
thought, threw the shell straighter than any of the other
field-pieces of the church-militant. Hence it was even in
justification of God himself that a party arose to say that a man
could believe without the help of God at all, and after believing
only began to receive God's help--a heresy all but as dreary and
barren as the former. No one dreamed of saying--at least such a
glad word of prophecy never reached Rothieden--that, while nobody
can do without the help of the Father any more than a new-born babe
could of itself live and grow to a man, yet that in the giving of
that help the very fatherhood of the Father finds its one gladsome
labour; that for that the Lord came; for that the world was made;
for that we were born into it; for that God lives and loves like the
most loving man or woman on earth, only infinitely more, and in
other ways and kinds besides, which we cannot understand; and that
therefore to be a man is the soul of eternal jubilation.
Robert consequently began to take fits of soul-saving, a most
rational exercise, worldly wise and prudent--right too on the
principles he had received, but not in the least Christian in its
nature, or even God-fearing. His imagination began to busy itself
in representing the dire consequences of not entering into the one
refuge of faith. He made many frantic efforts to believe that he
believed; took to keeping the Sabbath very carefully--that is, by
going to church three times, and to Sunday-school as well; by never
walking a step save to or from church; by never saying a word upon
any subject unconnected with religion, chiefly theoretical; by never
reading any but religious books; by never whistling; by never
thinking of his lost fiddle, and so on--all the time feeling that
God was ready to pounce upon him if he failed once; till again and
again the intensity of his efforts utterly defeated their object by
destroying for the time the desire to prosecute them with the power
to will them.
Pages:
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142