My mother said but little of the above
directly, but the fragments which occasionally escaped her were pregnant,
and on looking back it is easy to perceive that she must have been
building one of the most stupendous aerial fabrics that have ever been
reared.
I have given the above in its more amusing aspect, and am half afraid
that I may appear to be making a jest of weakness on the part of one of
the most devotedly unselfish mothers who have ever existed. But one can
love while smiling, and the very wildness of my mother's dream serves to
show how entirely her whole soul was occupied with the things which are
above. To her, religion was all in all; the earth was but a place of
pilgrimage--only so far important as it was a possible road to heaven.
She impressed this upon both of us by every word and action--instant in
season and out of season, so that she might but fill us more deeply with
a sense of the things belonging to our peace.
But the inevitable consequences happened; my mother had aimed too high
and had overshot her mark. The influence indeed of her guileless and
unworldly nature remained impressed upon my brother even during the time
of his extremest unbelief (perhaps his ultimate safety is in the main
referable to this cause, and to the happy memories of my father, which
had predisposed him to love God), but my mother had insisted on the most
minute verbal accuracy of every part of the Bible; she had also dwelt
upon the duty of independent research, and on the necessity of giving up
everything rather than assent to things which our conscience did not
assent to.
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