“Then be the question asked, the answer given, As in the presence of the God of heaven;
All prejudice subdued, all pride laid low,—
‘Whence have I come, and whither will I go?’
Whence have I come? what wandering steps have led
To this the painful desert that I tread?
From what neglected duties have I fled
Am I the sufferer from others’ sin,
Or bear my most insidious foe within?
And whither would I go? where have I sought
Refuge from secret gloom and bitter thought?
Deep in the barren wilderness of pride?
Some crosses are from heaven sent,
And some we fashion of our own;
By envy, pride, and discontent
What thorns across our path are strown!
Not these the thorns that form the crown,
Not this the cross that lifts on high,—
Our sharpest trials we lay down
When sin and self we crucify!”
“I own it, dear Ida, I own it! I did wrong, very wrong. I felt that as soon as the letter had passed from my hand; I must have been mad when I sent it. I wrote to the London editor the next day to endeavour to stop the publication, but the piece was already in type.”
Such, after a painful conference, was the confession which conscience wrung from the Countess of Dashleigh.
[148]
Annabella was reclining on the sofa, her hair disordered, her eyes red with weeping. Ida was kneeling beside her, and the magazine lay on the floor.
“O Anna, Anna! why not own all this to your husband; throw yourself on his mercy, entreat his forgiveness—”
“It would be of no use!” exclaimed Annabella; “that paper he never will forgive. I have already merited his anger; I will not expose myself to his contempt.”
“We may be objects of contempt when we wander from the line of duty, but never when we are struggling back to it again. When we are lost in a thorny labyrinth, what wiser, what nobler course can we pursue, than to retrace every step of the way?”
“I can’t, I can’t,” gasped Annabella; “there is now a deep gulf between me and my husband!”
“Which is widening every moment; which delay may render impassable! It is yet spanned by a slender bridge of hope; but that bridge is trembling,—shaking,—Annabella, if you hold back now, it may sink before your eyes, and for ever!”
“What would you have me to do?” said the countess.
“Write a letter to the earl full of the humblest submission; tell him with what real grief and contrition—”
[149]
“Ida, you do not know me!” cried Annabella, pushing the loose hair impatiently back from her temples; “I cannot play the part of a penitent child, begging pardon for having been naughty; I cannot cringe beneath the rod, like a slave trembling before his master!”
“Anna!” exclaimed Ida, fixing on her cousin the earnest gaze of her expressive eyes, “must the slender bridge—your last hope—be broken down beneath the weight of your pride?”
“Pride,” observed the Countess, “has been termed the weakness of noble natures.”
“Pride,—what is it,” exclaimed Ida, “as mirrored in the word of God? Is it not of the world,—that world that passeth away; doth not the Lord resist the proud, while giving grace unto the humble? Doth not inspired truth declare that before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honour is humility? Is not the Saviour’s blessing on the meek, and on such as are poor in spirit? Why should I multiply quotations? Your own heart must tell you, dear Anna, that if one thing more than another stands between man and his Maker, and darkens the light of Heaven, it is the baneful spirit of pride!”
“It is interwoven with my nature,” said the countess.
“The life-long battle of the Christian is with his fallen nature, but it is a struggle in which he is not[150] left alone. Nay, a new heart, a new nature is given to those who seek it in earnest prayer; a new heart filled with the Spirit of God, a new nature conformed to the likeness of Him who was meek and lowly in spirit. What are the Bible emblems of those who are the soldiers and saints of the Lord? The lamb, the dove, the little child! Can such be fit types of one who struggles against lawful authority, and recoils from the duty of submission?”
Annabella was a little nettled. “I think,” she observed, with some sarcasm in her tone, “that my saintly cousin is not yet herself so perfect in this virtue of submission, as to entitle her so eloquently to enforce it on another.”
Ida glanced up in surprise. She had not been aware that the quick observation of her cousin had detected in her the lurking enemy of whose presence she herself was scarcely aware, and against whom she was hardly on her guard. But she could not deny the truth of the accusation so suddenly brought against her, and was too earnest in the cause which she was advocating to be silenced by a personal remark.
“Oh! my dear cousin!” she replied, her soft, dark eyes filling with tears, “let not my errors be a stumbling-block in the way of those whom I love. Look not at the miserable transcript, all stained and blotted with human infirmity, but turn your eyes to[151] the blessed Original which is set before us, that we may copy its sacred features into our hearts and our lives! What was the spirit of Christ? and hath not Truth declared that if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His? Was it not a spirit patient under suffering, meek under insult, a spirit ever ready to forgive? Did He not love his enemies, bless them that cursed Him, and do good to them that persecuted Him? Look on Him, dearest, look on Him, till in the brightness of His glory sin appear all the darker and more hateful! There is no pride in heaven, Annabella; we must throw away the chain ere we reach that bright place, or we never can enter therein! It is pride that is now shutting you out of your earthly home, barring against you a husband’s heart, changing domestic peace to misery. Oh, how terrible the thought that pride has shut out multitudes from an eternal home, made them aliens from a heavenly Father, rendered them sharers in the fate of that terrible being, who lost a seraph’s crown throug............