Now, Oliver, you are settled with me, to live with me as long as I live myself. And that is your side of the fireplace, and that is your chair. And a comfortable room this library is ; is it not? There shall be a sofa brought into it, and every thing else that will be for your comfort shall be got. And here will we wait till our change come, for many, many pleasant hours, I hope. For me, Oliver, it is a happiness to see you so resigned. And to hear you talk does me good. But it is of little use my company can be to you. I am old, and I am older than my years, I think. I am not the man I was once. Still, I am not declining into second childhood yet, I hope. AUBIN. No, uncle, you are not, and never are to be, I hope; though, if you were, it would not be a thing to be mourned for, dear uncle, would it? For the second childhood of a saint is the early infancy of a happy immortality, as we believe. MARHAM. What you say does cheer me so, Oliver! But, indeed, I am often distressed at being so useless in my old age. AUBIN. How are you useful? By Useless! You are of great use, uncle Stephen, you really are. being a man that is old. lic good. It is, indeed. Your old age is a pub- and girls, and young men and women of this neighbourhood, probably not ten, and perhaps not even one, will ever be as old as you. But something of the good of old age they may all get, through sympathy with you. No child ever listens to your talk without having a good done it that no schooling could do. When you are walk ing, no one ever opens a gate for you to pass through, and no one ever honors you with any kind of help, without being himself the better for what he does; for fellow-feeling with you ripens his soul for him. At the longest, I cannot have long to live; and I shall never be old. But through living with you, uncle, and loving you, I hope to understand, and feel, and make my own, those changes which come over the soul with length of life. MARHAM. When the powers of the body fail, the feelings do alter much; and with me they grow melancholy, which, perhaps, they should not do. But they are sad experiences, when sight and hearing and motion fail. AUBIN. Not sad, uncle Stephen, but serious; and not so serious as solemn. Is your eyesight dimmer? Then the world is seen by you in a cathedral light. Is your hearing duller? Then it is just as though you were always where loud voices and footsteps ought not to be heard. Is your temper not as merry as it was once? Then it is more solemn; so that round you the common atmosphere feels like that of the house of the Lord. Yes, for twilight and silence and solemnity, old age makes us like daily dwellers in the house of the Lord; and a mortal sickness does this, sometimes, as well as old age. But it is our own thoughts that have to supply the service, and our own hearts that have to make the music triumphant, or else like a dirge. And the sermon is preached to us by conscience from some text taken out of the book of our remembrance. While to it all, Amen has to be said by ourselves; and when it is said gladly, then there is an echo to it in heaven, and joy among the angels. MARHAM. You are so at home in religion, Oliver! And that is why your talk pleases me so much, I think. For with most persons, it is as though they had forced themselves to be religious. AUBIN. At present, in men's minds, religion is not as spontaneous as poetry is; and, indeed, is not genial at all. MARHAM. And in this room are books which are weary reading to us, but which, a hundred years ago, our forefathers wept over, and prayed upon, and thanked God for. AUBIN. We cannot feel as they did, because we do not think as they thought. Once, men thought themselves to be the only creatures in a state of probation; and this little earth was fancied to be almost the only spot, excepting hell, that was not heaven. From astronomy, we know this to have been an error. And many, very many things which our forefathers were sure of one way, in science and philosophy, we are sure of otherwise. And so, under these errors, what they said and wrote religiously is either lower than our feeling, or else beside it. But some time religion will be familiar to men again, although we have got among different circumstances from what our fathers worshipped in; for there is religion in all things, just as there is poetry, though as yet it is waiting to be discovered; but when once it has been found, all persons will see it at last, and it will be natural to them. Immortality is not now believed in, commonly, in the manner it ought to be. The doctrine of it wants to be familiarized into feeling; and especially, I think, there want to be developed such corroborations of the great truth as are latent in science, history, philosophy, and in the fresh experiences which, as human beings, we are always passing through. The Greek Gospels require to be made English, for common use; and for daily, homely feeling, the great doctrine of immortality wants familiarizing. MARHAM. You are hinting at what would be as great as a new Reformation in the Church. |