g to them
like sleep from the roots of their being, and having nothing to do with
their opinions or beliefs. And hence spring those comforting subterfuges
of hope to which they all fly. Not being able to trust the Father
entirely, they yet say: 'Who can tell what took place at the last
moment? Who can tell whether God did not please to grant them saving
faith at the eleventh hour?'--that so they might pass from the very
gates of hell, the only place for which their life had fitted them, into
the bosom of love and purity! This God could do for all: this for the
son beloved of his mother perhaps he might do!

O rebellious mother heart! dearer to God than that which beats
laboriously solemn under Genevan gown or Lutheran surplice! if thou
wouldst read by thine own large light, instead of the glimmer from
the phosphorescent brains of theologians, thou mightst even be able to
understand such a simple word as that of the Saviour, when, wishing his
disciples to know that he had a nearer regard for them as his brethren
in holier danger, than those who had not yet partaken of his light, and
therefore praying for them not merely as human beings, but as the human
beings they were, he said to his Father in their hearing: 'I pray not
for the world, but for them,'--not for the world now, but for them--a
meaningless utterance, if he never prayed for the world; a word of
small meaning, if it was not his very wont and custom to pray for the
world--for men as men. Lord Christ! not alone from the pains of hell, or
of conscience--not alone from the outer darkness of self and all that is
mean and poor and low, do we fly to thee; but from the anger that arises
within us at the wretched words spoken in thy name, at the degradation
of thee and of thy Father in the mouths of those that claim especially
to have found thee, do we seek thy feet. Pray thou for them also, for
they know not what they do.

CHAPTER XIV. MARY ST. JOHN.

After this, day followed day in calm, dull progress. Robert did not care
for the games through which his school-fellows forgot the little they
had to forget, and had therefore few in any sense his companions. So
he passed his time out of school in the society of his grandmother
and Shargar, except that spent in the garret, and the few hours a
week occupied by the lessons of the shoemaker. For he went on, though
half-heartedly, with those lessons, given now upon Sandy's redeemed
violin which he called his old wif