She repented,
it is true, the moment she had said the words, from dread of her
aunt; but they had been said, and were accepted. Mary went, and
the aunt difficulty had been got over. The friendship of Godfrey
also had now run into that of the girls, and Mary's visits were
continued with pleasure to all, and certainly with no little
profit to herself; for, where the higher nature can not
communicate the greater benefit, it will reap it. Her Sunday
visit became to Mary the one foraging expedition of the week--
that which going to church ought to be, and so seldom can be.
The beginning and main-stay of her spiritual life was, as we have
seen, her father, in whom she believed absolutely. From books and
sermons she had got little good; for in neither kind had the best
come nigh her. She did very nearly her best to obey, but without
much perceiving the splendor of the thing required, or much
feeling its might upon her own eternal nature. She was as yet, in
relation to the gospel, much as the Jews were in relation to
their law; they had not yet learned the gospel of their law, and
she was yet only serving the law of the gospel. But she was
making progress, in simple and pure virtue of her obedience. Show
me the person ready to step from any, let it be the narrowest,
sect of Christian Pharisees into a freer and holier air, and I
shall look to find in that person the one of that sect who, in
the midst of its darkness and selfish worldliness, mistaken for
holiness, has been living a life more obedient than the rest.
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