This, of course, was conditional upon his behavior, and all knew that
his father would be the last man to impose an injurious person on the
church; they had little idea that "Cal." Van de Lear was devout, but
took the old man's word that grace grew more and more in the sons of the
Elect, and the young man had already professed "conviction," and
voluntarily been received into the church. There he assumed, like an
heir-apparent, the vicarship of the congregation, and it rather
delighted his father that his son so promptly and complacently took
direction of things, made his quasi pastoral rounds, led
prayer-meetings, and exhorted Sunday-schools and missions. A priest
knows the heart of his son no more than a king, and is less suspicious
of him. The king's son may rebel from deferred expectation; the priest's
son can hardly conspire against his father's pulpit. In the minister's
family the line between the world and the faith is a wavering one;
religion becomes a matter of course, and yet is without the mystery of
religion as elsewhere, so that wife and sons regard ecclesiastical
ambition as meritorious, whether the heart be in it piously or
profanely. Calvin Van de Lear was in the church fold of his own accord,
and his father could no more read that son's heart than any other
member's.
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