y experience--proclaims the
melancholy fact, that no amount of high-wrought feeling, no loftiness of
speech, no intensity of expression, is a guarantee for purity of soul and
conduct, when obedience, simple, childlike obedience, has ceased to be the
spring of every motion and every aim. Reader, let us grapple with this
truth! We are servants here on earth, not masters! subjects, and not
legislators! Infants are we all in the arms of a just father! The command
is from elsewhere--_obedience_ is with us. If you would be happy, I charge
you, fling away the hope of finding security or rest in laws of your own
making in a system which you are pleased to call a code of
_honour_--honour that grows cowardlike and pale in the time of trial--that
shrinks in the path of duty--that slinks away unarmed and powerless, when
it should be nerved and ready for the righteous battle. Where are the
generous sentiments--the splendid outbursts--the fervid eloquence with
which Michael Allcraft was wont to greet the recital of any one short
history of oppression and dishonesty? Where are they now, in the first
moments of real danger, whilst his own soul is busy with designs as base
as they are cowardly? Nothing is easier for a loquacious person than to
talk. How glibly Michael could declaim against mankind before the
fascinating Margaret, we have seen; how feelingly against the degenerate
spirit of commerce, and the back-slidings of all professors of religion.
Surely, he who saw and so well depicted the vices of the age, was prepared
for adversity and its temptations! Not he, nor any man who prefers to be
the slave of impulse rather than the child of reason. After a day's
deliberation, he had resolved upon two things--first, not to expose
himself to the pity or derision of men, as it might chance to be, by
proclaiming the insolvency of his deceased father and secondly, not to
risk the loss of Margaret, by acknowledging himself to be a beggar. His
father had told him--he remembered the words well that she was induced to
name the wedding-day, only upon receiving the assurance of his
independence. Not to undeceive her now, would be to wed her under false
pretences; but to free her from deception, would be to free her from her
plighted word, and this his sense of honour would not let him do. I will
not say that Michael grossly and unfeelingly proposed to circumvent--to
cheat and rob the luckless Margaret; or that his conscience, that mighty
law unto i