cAt^^ I^SAbc. a 
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DIARY
OF
MRS. KITTY      TREVYLYAN:
L 0Storg of tlhe Zimes
OF
WHITEFIEID AND THE WESLEYS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF
" Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family,"
" The waay nawn," &c.
WIT  A
PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR
FOR THE AMERICAN EDITION.
NEW YORK:
M. W. DODD, No. 506 BROADWAY.
i865.




Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864,
BY M. W. DODD,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New York.
20 NORTH WILLIAM STREET. NEW YORK,
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY EDWARD O. JENKINS.




I Z'o L- vowsa/7ve f
PUBLISHER'S ADVERTISEMENT.
BOUT twelve months since, the Publisher of
this volume had his attention arrested by a
series of contributions to an English periodical. Not then knowing the source from whence they
came, but deeply impressed with the genius and power
of authorship exhibited in these contributions, he decided
to publish them in a more permanent form and save
them from the usual fate of magazine articles.
Our publication, entitled " Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family," appeared at the close of last year.
Many thousand homes and hearts have since been instructed, cheered and delighted with this remarkable
work. Its circulation is still extending, and will continue to extend, diffusing its'quickening and purifying
influence more and more widely.
During the past summer we issued another work by
the same anonymous author, entitled " The Early Dawn;
or, Sketches of Christian Life in England in the Olden
Time," just then completed in the same magazine, and
evincing, as in the previous volume, rare abilities in this
field of authorship.
Favouring circumstances subsequently gave us access
(iii)




iv       PUBLISHER'S AD VERTISEMEiT.
to the author, which has resulted in an arrangement for
the publication of the present volume, the manuscript
of the concluding portion of which we have just received
from the writer.
This volume will be followed at no distant interval, we
hope, by others; an announcement that will doubtless be
hailed with satisfaction by the author's numerous friends
and admirers in America. They will also be glad to know
that, by our recent arrangement with her, one whose
genius and labours are affording them so much instruction and pleasure, will not be left without substantial
evidence that she is appreciated by her American publisher and readers.
The great desire expressed in this country tofbe acquainted with the author's name, led us to solicit the
privilege of making it known. This was declined, but in
lieu thereof, she has furnished for this volume the following brief, though pertinent and characteristic Preface
addressed to her American readers.  The kindly sentiments therein expressed will assuredly meet with a
hearty response from this side the Atlantic.
NEW YORIK, November, 1864.




THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE
To the American Edition of the " Diary of Mrs. Kitty
Trevylyan."
HE welcome which has been given,
in many American homes, to the
"Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta
Family" makes the author feel it is scarcely
sending Mrs. Kitty Trevylyan and her friends
among strangers, to introduce them in America.
Whitefield and the Wesleys are our common
countrymen, and their work belongs as much to
America as to England, standing as they do
as the well-spring of a stream of blessing
which has flowed ever since in scarcely parted
currents through both countries.
It is pleasant to the'writer to. hope that,
while so many books by American authors are
among the household treasures of our English
homes, this volume may, by its welcome in
(7)




S          THE A UTHOR'S PREFA CE.
American homes, form one more of those links
of good will and sympathy, which, like the
delicate fibres of the grasses which cement the
sands and keep off the ocean from our shores,
though each insignificant in itself, yet together
weave the closest bonds between families and
nations, and the strongest barriers against all
that could divide.
October, 1864.




I.
Wednesday, May the First, 1745.
OTHER always said that on the day I became
sixteen she would give me a book of my own,
in which to keep a Diary. I have wished for
it ever since I was ten, because Mother herself always
keeps a Diary; and when anything went wrong in the
house,-when Jack was provoking, or Father was passionate with him, or when our maid Betty was more than
usually wilful, or our man Roger more than usually
stupid,-she would retire to her own little light closet
over the porch, and come out again with a serenity on
her face which seemed to spread over the house like fine
weather.
And in that little closet there is no furniture but the
old rocking-chair, in which Mother used t6 rock us children to sleep, and a table covered with a white cloth, with
four books on it,-the Bible, Bishop Taylor's "Holy
Living and Dying," Thomas a Kempis on the " Imitation
of Christ," and the Diary.
The three printed books I was allowed to read, but
(except the Bible) they used in my childish days to seem
(11)




12               TIE DIARY OF
to meA:very gloomy and grave, and not at all such as to
account for that infectious peacefulness in Mcther's face
and voice.
I concluded, therefore, that the magic must lie in the
Diary, which we were never permitted to open, although
I had often felt sorely tempted to do so, especially since
one morning when it lay open by accident, and I saw
Jack's name and Father's on the page. For there were
blots there, such as used to deface my copy-book, on those
sorrowful days when the lessons appeared particularly
hard, when all the world, singing birds, and bees, and
breezes, and even my own fingers, seemed against me
and I could not help crying with vexation,-those blots
which Mother used to call " Fairy Faineante's footsteps"
(for Mother's grandmother was a Huguenot French lady,
driven from France by the cruel revocation of the Edict
of Nantes,-and Mother taught us French).
It made me wonder if Mother too had her hard lessons to learn, and I longed to peep and see. Yes, there
were certainly tears on Mother's Diary. I wonder if
there will be any on mine.
So white and clean the pages are now, and the calf-skin
binding so bright and new! like life before me, like the
bright world which looks so new around me.
How difficult it is to believe the world is so old, and
has lasted so long l This morning when I went up over
the cliff behind our house to the little croft in the hollow
where the cows are pastured, to milk Daisy for Mother's
morning cup of new milk, and the little meadow lay blue




MRS. RITTY TREVYLYAN.              13
in the early dew before me, and each delicate blade of
grass was glittering around me, and far beneath, the
waves murmured on the sands like some happy mothercreature making soft contented cooings and purrings over
its young; and far away in the offing, beyond the long
shadow of the cliffs, the just risen sun was kissing the
little waves awake one by one,-it seemed as if the sun,
and the sea, and the green earth, and I were all young
together, and God like a father was smiling on us all.
And is it not true in some sense? Is not every sunrise like a fresh creation? and every morning like the
birth of a new life? and every night like a hidden fountain of youth, in which all the creatures bathe in silence
and come forth again new-born?
It often seems so to me.
I am so glad Mother lets me help Betty about the
milking. At first she thought it was hardly fit work for
Father's daughter (he being of an ancient and honourable
family), but I like it so much better than any work indoors, that since there are only Betty and Roger, and we
must help in some way, she was persuaded to let me do
what I enjoy. Mother always says, since Father chose
poverty with her rather than riches and honours with his
great relations, we must all do all we can to make it easy
to him. Mother thinks it was such a great sacrifice for
him to marry her, a poor chaplain's daughter. But it is
impossible for me to think it a sacrifice for any one to
have married Mother.




14               THE DIARY OF
It was delicious to sit milking Daisy and thinking of
these things, and of how Mother would welcome me with
my cup of new milk on this my birthday morning, while
every now and then Daisy, the friendly creature, looked
round and thanked me with her great kind motherly
eyes, or rubbed her rough tongue on my dress. There
is something that goes so to my heart in the dumb gratitude of animals.
However, as I was walking home with my milk-pails,
singing, I met Toby Treffry riding his widowed mother's
donkey, beating the poor beast with a huge stick,-blows
which resounded as if from the trunk of a tree,-and
shouting at it in those inhuman kind of savage gutturals
which seem to be received as the only speech comprehensible to donkeys.
It stopped my singing at once, and I chid Toby severely for his cruelty to the creature, and it so thin and
starved.
" It has had a better breakfast than I am like to get,
Mistress," retorted Toby surlily; " ahd if I was as lazy
as the brute, surely master would whack me harder. And
there's mother at home without a crust till I come back."
Toby is a lank, lean-looking lad, and I chid myself for
not remembering how his temper might be tried by
poverty, and thought I could do no less to make up for
my hard words to him than offer him a drink of milk
and a crust I had in my pocket, and gently commend the
beast to his tender mercies.
Methought the lad was hardly as thankful as he might




MIRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN.            15
have been  indeed, I am not sure he did not regard the
gift as a kiad of weak attempt at bribery. And so he
went on his way, and I on mine. But the current of my
thoughts was quite changed, and everything around
seemed changed with them.
Beneath me, on the white sands in the cove, lay the
wreck of the fishing-smack that was lost there last winter. Those sunny waves now fawning so softly on the
shore had not yet washed away the traces of their own
fierce work of destruction.
The thought of Toby's donkey brought before me all
the mute unavenged sufferings of the harmless beasts at
the hand of man. The thought of Toby's widowed mother
lying blind and lonely, waiting for a crust of bread,
led me down a step deeper into the sorrows of earth,to want, and pain, and death. And the thought of Toby
himself avenging his sorrows on the poor helpless beast
led me to the lowest depth of all; for if the end of all
this want, and pain, and sorrow, was to harden instead
of soften, to make worse instead of better, what a terrible chaos the world and life seemed to be!
Thus, instead of the creation seeming the ladder of
light on which just before my spirit had been rising to
heaven, from love to joy, and joy to love, it seemed to
have become a winding stair-case into the abyss, from
sorrow to sin, and from sin to sorrow.
The matter was too hard for me, but I resolved to ask
Mother, and at all events to carry some bread and milk
at once to Widow Treffry.




I6               THE DIARY OF
I therefore set down my pails in the dairy, gave them
in charge to Betty, cut off a large slice of the great barley
loaf, took it with a jug of milk to Widow Treffry, and
was back at the door of Mother's closet with her cup of
new milk scarcely after the appointed time.
Yet Mother has been looking for me, for when she
answered, she had this beautiful Diary of mine all ready
beside her own.
She smiled at my rapture of delight. But it is so very
seldom that anything new appears in our house, on account of our not being rich, that I never can help enjoying a new dress or a new hood, or even a new ribbon, as
if it made the day on which it came a high day and a
holiday, just as I used when I was a child; although
now, indeed, I am a child no longer, and ought to estimate things, as Parson Spencer says, with a gravity
becoming my years.
My new treasure entirely put all the great mysteries
of toil and sorrow out of my head, until Mother, laying
her hand fondly on my head as I knelt beside her, said,"Your cheek is like a fresh rose, Kitty; the draught of
morning air is as good for thee as the new milk for me;"
and then pointing to her old worn Diary, she added," Thou and thy book are as suitable to each other as I
and mine."
A passionate, fervent contradiction was on my lips.
Our precious, beaatiful Mother! as young in heart as
ever. But while I looked up:in her dear thin face I
could not speak; -he words were choked in mv throat,




MRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN.             17
and I could only look down again and lay my cheek on
her hand.
" Do not flatter thyself, Mrs. Kitty," she said, with her
little quiet laugh, "as if the comparison were all in thy
favour. May there not be something in the inside of this
poor worn old book worth as much as the new gilding
and white emptiness of thine? Mine is worth more to
me than when it was clean and bright as thine."
I thought of the blotted page I had once seen by accident there, and I said," But what if there should be pages there stained with
tears?"
"The pages blotted with tears are not always the
darkest to look back on," she said.
Then the thought flashed on me,-" Perhaps it may be
the same with the world's history."  The tear-stained
pages, nay, the blood-stained pages, may not be the darkest to read, by-and-by;" and I said so, and told Mother
also about Toby and the donkey, and Widow Treffry.
She paused a moment, as if to read my thought to the
end, and then she said, in a low calm voice,"One page of the world's history stained with the bitterest tears ever shed on earth, and steeped in guiltless
blood, is not the darkest to read. Child, it is in the light
of that sorrow and that sin thou must learn to understand all the rest. All these hard and bitter questions
are answered there to the lowly heart, and nowhere else,
and to none else, as far as I have seen. But each of us
must learn for himself, and learn it there. I cannot teach




t8               THE DIARY OF
it thee, darling, nor, I think, can God himself teach it thee,
in one lesson. But He is never weary of teaching, child;
only be thou never weary of learning; and hereafter,
when all the lessons are learned, and we wake up in His
likeness, thou and I will sing together the Halleluiahs and
the Amens it took us so long to learn, and then we shall
be satisfied."
Thursday, May the Second, 1745.
I MEANT to have written a great deal more last night,
but as I recalled those words of Mother's, I fell into
a long musing, and then I must have fallen into a long
doze, for the next thing I was conscious of was the hooting of the white owl that has built in the ruined side of
the house.
So I never got beyond breakfast time. It is quite
plain that a Diary cannot be meant to be a record of all
that happens in any one day, because it would take all
day to write it, and then there would be nothing to write.
-Who would think, until they began to write, how much
is always happening; how many words are spoken, and
how many things are done on every one of those days
which seem so like each other, and are over almost before
they seem properly begun I
As it passes, a day seems just a moment, but while we
try to recall what it brought, a day seems a life-time.
I have heard old people say all life to look back on is
just like a summer-day. And yet, when we stand at the
judgment bar of God, and all the days are unrolled before us. will not each day seem like a life-time in its early




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.               19
resolutions broken, its irrevocable opportunities lost, its
sins unrepented, its blessings uncounted?  It is a discovery I have jrlst made in my precious Diary which has
set me on these grave reflections.
On the last page I find Mother has written with her
own hand these passages from Bishop Taylor's "Golden
Grove":
"' AGENDA, OR THINGS TO BE DONE.
" THE DIARY, OR A RULE TO SPEND EACH DAY RELIGIOUSLY.
" 1. Suppose every day to be a day of business; for
your whole life is a race and a battle, a merchandize and
a journey. Every day propound to yourself a rosary or
a chaplet of good works, to present to God at night.
" 2. Rise as soon as your health and other occasions shall
permit; but it is good to be as regular as you can, and
as early. Remember he that rises first to prayer hath a
more early title to a blessing. But he that changes night
into day, labour into idleness, watchfulness into sleep,
changes his hope of blessedness into a dream.
" 3. Never let any one think it an excuse to lie in bed,
because he hath nothing to do when he is up; for whoever hath a soul, and hopes to save that soul, hath enough
to do to make his calling and election sure, to serve
God and to pray, to read and to meditate, to repent and
to amend, to do good to others and to keep evil from
themselves. And if thou hast little to do, thou oughtest
to employ the more time in laying up for a greater crown
of glory.




zo               THE DIARY OF
" 4. At your opening your eyes enter on the day with
some act of piety" (1.) Of thanksgiving for the preservation of the night
past.
" (2.) Of the glorification of God for the works of the
creation, or anything for the honour of God.
"5. When you first go off from your bed, solemnly and
devoutly bow your head and worship the Holy Trinitythe Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
"6. When you are making ready, be as silent as you
can, and spend that time in holy thoughts; there being no
way left to redeem that time from loss but by meditation
and short mental prayers. If you choose to speak, speak
something of God's praises, of his goodness, his mercies,
or his greatness; ever resolving that the first fruits of
thy reason and of all thy faculties shall be presented to
God, to sanctify the whole harvest of thy conversation.
"7. Be not curious nor careless in your habit, but always keep these measures:" (1) Be not troublesome to thyself or to others by
unhandsomeness or uncleanness.
"(2.) Let it be according to your state and quality.
" (3.) Make religion to be the difference of your habit,
so as to be best attired upon holy or festival days.
"8. In ydur dressing, let there be ejaculations fitted to
the several actions of dressing: as at washing your
hands and face, pray God to cleanse your soul from sin;
in putting on your clothes, pray him to clothe your soul
with the righteousness of your Saviour; and so in all the




~ARS. KITTY TREVYLYALY.           21
rest. For religion must not only be the garment of your
soul, to invest it all over; but it must also be as the
fringes to every one of your actions, that something of
religion appear in every one of them, besides the innocence of all of them.
" 9. As soon as you are dressed with the first preparation of your clothes that you can decently do it, kneel
and say the Lord's Prayer; then rise from your knees,
and do what is necessary for you, in order to.your further dressing or affairs of the house, which is speedily
to be done; and then finish your dressing according to
the following rules.
10. When you are dressed, retire yourself to your
closet, and go to your usual devotions; which it is good
that at the first prayers they were divided into seven
actions of piety:"(1.) An act of adoration.
"(2.) Of thanksgiving.
" (3.) Of oblation.
"(4.) Of confession.
" (5.) Of petition.
"(6.) Of intercession.
" (7.) Of meditation, or serious, deliberate, useful reading of the Holy Scriptures.
"11. I advise that your reading should be governed
by these measures:"(1.) Let it be not of the whole Bible in order, but for
your devotion use the New Testament, and such portions
of the Old as contain the precepts of holy life,




22                THE DIARY OF
" (2 ) The historical and less useful part, let it be read
at such other times which you have of leisure from your
domestic employments.
"(3.) Those portions of Scripture which you use in
your prayers, let them not be long; a chapter at once,
and no more. But then what time you can afford, spend
it in thinking and meditating upon the holy precepts
which you read.
"(4.) Be sure to meditate so long, till you make some
act of piety upon the occasion of what you meditate:
either that you get some new arguments against a sin, or
some new encouragements to virtue; some spiritual
strength and advantage, or else some act of prayer to
God, or glorification of Him.
" (5.) I advise tat you would read your chapter in
the midst of your prayers in the morning, if they be
divided according to the number of the former actions;
because little interruptions will be apt to make your
prayers less tedious, and yourself more attent upon them,
but if you find any other way more agreeing with your
spirit and disposition, use your liberty without scruple.
" 12. Before you go forth of your closet, after your
prayers are done, set yourself down a little while, and
consider what you are to do that day, what matter of
business is like to employ you or to tempt you; and
take particular resolution against that, whether it be
matter of wrangling, or anger, or covetousness, or vain
courtship, or feasting; and when you enter upon it, remember upon what you resolved in your closet. If you are




MJRS. KITTY TREVYLYA.             23
likely to have nothing extraordinary -that day, a general
recommendation of the affairs of that day to God in your
prayers will be sufficient; but if there be anything foreseen that is not usual, be sure to be armed for it by a
hearty, though a short prayer, and an earnest, prudent
resolution beforehand, and then watch when the thing
comes.
*      *      *      *       *      *"22. Towards the declining of the day, be sure to retire to your private devotions. Read, meditate, and pray.
" 23. Read not much at a time; but meditate as much
as your time and capacity and disposition will give you
leave; ever remembering that little reading and much
thinking, little speaking and much hearing, frequent and
short prayers and great devotion, is the best way to be
wise, to be holy, to be devout.
" 24. Before you go to bed, bethink yourself of the
day past. If nothing extraordinary hath happened, your
conscience is the sooner examined; but if you have had
a difference or disagreeing with any one, or a great feast,
or a great company, or a great joy, or a great sorrow,
then recollect yourself with the more diligence: ask pardon for what is amiss, give God thanks for what was
good. If you have omitted any duty, make amends next
day; and yet if nothing be found that was amiss, be
humbled still and thankful, and pray God for pardon if
anything be amiss that you know not of. Remember
also to be sure to take notice of all the mercies and deliverances of yourself and your relatives that day.




24               THE DIARY OF
" 25. As you are going to bed, as often as you can
conveniently, meditate of death, and the preparations to
your grave.  When you lie down, close your eyes
with a short prayer; commit yourself into the hands
of your faithful Creator; and when you have done,
trust Him with yourself, as you must do when you are
dying.
"26. If you awake in the night, fill up the intervals or
spaces of your not sleeping by holy thoughts and aspirations, and remember the sins of your youth; and sometimes remember your dead, and that you shall die; and
pray to God to send to you and all mankind a mercy in
the day of judgment."
I have taken so long reading these holy rules, and
thinking of them, and thinking of Mother's goodness in
writing them out with her own dear hand, that I have no
time to write any more.
To-morrow I hope to begin in good earnest to put them
in practice.
Only those last I certainly cannot put in practice; for
I never remember waking in the night for long enough
than just to hear a gust of wind through the tall old
elms, and perhaps a rook cawing a remonstrance at being
blown out of his nest, and the rain pattering against the
window-panes; and then to thank God.for my bed, and
feel how comfortable it is, and fall asleep again.
Also, I have no beloved dead to remember.  None.
My beloved are all living-Father, and Mother, and




MXRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             25
Brother Jack, and Hugh Spencer; and if I stayed awake
till cock-crowing, how could I thank God enough for
that?
Friday, May the Third.
EARLY as I woke this morning, the birds were
awake before me. First came the cawing of the
busy rooks, from their nests in the elms, far above the
roof; then the twittering of the sparrows in the whitethorn under my window. And these seemed to me like
the tuning of the instruments in the church before the
psalm, which was soon poured out in a delicious flow of
continuous song from the throats of the thrushes and the
blackbirds.
Yes, the choir was all ready for me; and when I opened
my casement, the hawthorn and the lilacs sent up their
delicate fragrance, like another kind of music.
I felt so happy as I looked out on the humble creatures
all sending up their incense of content to God, that my
eyes filled with tears, and I knelt and said aloud the
Lord's Prayer, and then I said in my heart," Dear creatures of God, ye seem never able to utter
what ye would of his praise; and yet you do not know
half his goodness-not half of what we know. Ye bask
in the light of his smile, but we know the secret of his
heart. ~ Ye praise him for the overflowing of his riches,
which cost him nothing; we praise him for the sacrificing
love which cost Him his Son. The earth is full of thy
riches; but we only know, 0 our Saviour, the love of
thy poverty and thy cross."




26                THE DIARY OF
For the words Mother said to me on my birthday
morning have been much in my mind ever since.
So it seemed to me most natural this morning that
every act should be something like what the Catechism
says the Holy Sacraments are-" an outward visible sign
of an inward spiritual grace." And as I opened my
window, I thought, " Jesus my Sun, I open my heart to
thee! Let thy light and thy Spirit flow into my soul,
as thy light and air into my chamber."  And was not
the pure cold water one of His own consecrated images?
and did not the very clothes that I put on recall the
white robes, made white as no fuller on earth can white
them, in a fountain no hand on earth could open or
close?
I had no temptation to "light discourse," for Betty
had just left the room inside mine, and was at no time
very conversational; and not a creature else, except the
birds, was awake.
When I was dressed, I thought how I might best fulfil
the good Bishop's directions as to " retiring to my closet."
At first I thought I would ask Mother to let me clear a
small chamber in the turret above the apple-room. But
then I thought it would be rather like the Pharisees
praying in the corners of the streets, to go up there in
the sight of all to perform my devotions; and I should
lose the sweet feeling that no one knows what I am
doing but God.
So I came to the conclusion that no place could be a
better closet than a young maid's chamber like mine,




MR3. KITTY TREVYLYAN.              27
with such, lights and scents and sounds to be had from
my casement.
But this inward debate occupied some tine, so that I
had not much time for the "seven actions of piety."
Indeed, the first two of adoration and thanksgiving
seemed necessarily much the longest for me, because I
have so endlessly much to give thanks for, and so little
to wish for. I must ask Mother whether this is right,
and also what the act of oblation means. Also I am not
quite sure whether I made the right kind of " act of
piety" in reading the Holy Scriptures. My chapter was
the first of St. Matthew, but I did not get beyond the
twenty-first verse, because it seemed to me such a wonderful promise that Jesus our Lord will really save us
from our sins, from being impatient and discontented and
all the things which make us unhappy. Before I got any
further it was high time for me to be going a-milking.
Therefore I resolved, that instead of sitting down to
think what temptations were likely to come on me, I
would do this on my way to the cliff, to the pasture
where the cows are. That was how it happened that
my temptations came on me before I had time to think
of them and guard myself; although indeed in general
it seems to me the very essence of temptations is that
they come just when and where one does not expect
them.
On my way to take the milk-pail from the dairy, I
went to see if some cough syrup I had made for Widow
Treffry, and had left to stand there all night, had settled.




28               TIIE DIARY OF
When I came to the shelf on which I had laid it, it was
gone. On my questioning Betty (very gently, I am sure,
for it was washing-day, and we know she has all her
prickles out then), she replied she could not let such
rubbish stand by her cream to tempt all the flies in the
country. She had put it on the window-seat in the
kitchen, and the cat had upset it. It was a mercy the
cup was not broken, and that the poor cat was not
poisoned. She would not have such filthy stuff in her
dairy. To which I retorted warmly that I had certainly
as much right to the dairy as she had, and that she
might have known the cat always sat in that windowsill when there was sunshine.
Betty replied that she was not going to be ordered
about by those she had brought up from the cradle; and
I retired from the contest, worsted; as I might have
known I should be.
On my return to my room, before breakfast, I found
all my drawers in disorder. On my complaining at the
breakfast-table, Jack laughed, and said he had only been
looking for a piece of string, and asked if I intended to
put it in my Diary.
I coloured, and said he had no right to pry into my
drawers, nor indeed to enter my room without permission.
Mother interposed, and said I should not make such a
storm about trifles.
And Father smiled, and asked me if my Diary was to
be like that of the citizen in the " Spectator." Monday



MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.              29
Rose and dressed, and washed hands and face. Tuesday
-Washed only my hands.
I ought to have laughed, but I could not. A profane
touch seemed to have brushed the bloom off my new
treasure, and so, somewhat heavily, the day passed on.
Iow very much everything has changed with me
since this morning. At all events I have no difficulty in
finding enough to-night for "confession" and "petition."
But to confess truly, I must, I think, be just to myself
as well as to others. I have noticed that sometimes one
can fall into a passion of self-accusation, which seems to
me no more true repentance than a passion of accusing
other people. I think one has no right to rail at one's self,
any more than at any one else. Besides, it seems to me
so much easier to burst into a flood of tears, and sob,
"I am a wretch, a miserable sinner, the chief of sinners,"
han to say with quiet shame, from one's inmost heart,
I was unjust to Betty to-day; I was cross and selfish
with Jack; I was impatient even with dearest Mother."
Disappointment and vexation are not repentance.
Exaggerated self-reproach is not confession.  In the
midst of our tears we secretly congratulate ourselves on
our sensibility; or the heart rebounds against the excess
of its self-accusation, and ends by estimating the sin as
very little, and its penitence as very great.
No: before all things I want to be true to myself and
to every one. I want really to overcome my sins- not
merely to have the luxury of weeping over them; and
2




30               THIE DIAR1Y OF
therefore I must try to know exactly what they are. It
was my hasty temper that led -me wrong in all these
things. But what makes my temper hasty?  What was
it that Betty touched to the quick in asserting her right
over me? I suppose it was my pride.
What made me so angry with Jack? He certainly
had no right to appropriate my property; but I had no
right to be angry. It must be then that I care too
much about my things! What fault is that? Can it
be avarice?
And then, what made me impatient with Mother? I
thought she did not justly stand up for my rights.
My dignity   My things! Miy rights! How mean
and selfish it looks!
What would have made me overcome?     If I had
thought of Betty's rough but most unselfish care over us
all these years; if I had loved Jack more than my
miserable things; if I had loved and honoured Mother as
I ought, and thought how tenderly faithful her reproofs
are, and how I need them!
What I want, then, is love-more love. Yes, there is
enough to confess, and enough to ask to-night.
Saturday, May the Fourth.
T   HIS morning was very wet and windy, and as I
came down into the dairy I found Betty there
already with the pails full of new milk.
" Do you think I was going to let such a young thing
as you go over the cliff in this storm?" said she, letting




MSRS. KITTY TREVYL TA.             31
down the pails with her stout, stalwart arms. "The
wind would have blown over a dozen of you."
Yet Betty has rheumatism, and certainly her clothes
are more precious to her, and more difficult to replace,
than mine.
"Betty," I said, in a flood of gratitude, "I never
ought to have spoken to you so yesterday about the
dairy."
" Young folks must have their tantrums," said Betty,
no doubt thinking it her duty not to miss such an opportunity of carrying on my education.
The glow of my repentance was somewhat chilled,
when Betty added,"There is not a creature that comes near her, that
Missis does not do her best to spoil. There'd be no
order in the house but for me. From Master Jack to
the cat, not a creature would know what it is to keep
in their place."
The universality of the censure took off its edge, and
I could not help laughing; which I found did my temper
much good.
I do think in good books something should be said of
the good it does one sometimes to laugh at one's self. I
think it often would do people more good than to cry.
I think religious people now and then perplex themselves by giving their faults too grand religious names.
It is necessary, indeed, to dig among the roots of our
sins;-but occasionally I think we may accofiiplish as
much by lightly moving the blossoms. For the blossoms




32t zTHE DIARY OF
also have seeds; and weeds spread by the seed as well
as by the root.
Sunday, June the Ninth.
SUNDAYS are always delightful days. The very
taking of the Sunday clothes out of the chest
where they have lain all the week among the lavender,
the sight of the clean swept stone floor of the hall
where we take our meals, gives one such a fresh, clean,
festive feeling.
We have not very many Sunday books. Mother sometimes brings down the " Holy Living and Dying " from
her closet; and when I sit at her feet, and she reads it
to me, I feel as if I were walking with one of the old
saints through some King's Garden, full of all manner
of fruits and flowers, and adorned with strange antique
statues of gods and heroes and saints all mixed together,
with stately foreign robes and faces, and garlanded with
exotics; while the air is heavy with fragrance and sunshine, and musical with the regular flow of artificial
fontinels. I enjoy it so much.
And then to read a chapter of the Bible afterwards is
like coming from that royal garden straight up to the
cliff behind our house, feeling the crisp fresh grass under
one's feet, and the fresh sea-air on one's face,-looking
over the fields where the cows and sheep and God's
other common creatures are enjoying themselves,-looking over the great and wide sea, with its countless
emerald and purple waves, to which we see no end,



MRS. KITTY TREVYLNY      A        33
looking up to the great sunny sky to which there is no
end;-and through it all listening to a Human Voice
like our own, telling us in simplest every-day words
things that touch our inmost hearts; and knowing that
the Human Voice is also Divine, and that the things it
tells are all true, for ever and for ever.
Then there are the Homilies, and, of course, the
Prayer-Book. I do not wish for any more religious
books. Besides, Betty has Foxe's Book of Martyrs, with
terrible pictures, and stories of agonies willingly borne
for Truth's sake-of heroic patience and joy in death
which brace the heart, as a strong pure air braces the
limbs-especially now that I am old enough to know
how to avoid the tortures and the dreadful pictures.
Monday, June the Tenth.
I WISH I could feel easy about Jack. It is not that
he has any great faults. He is honourable and truthful as our Father's son could hardly fail to be; and he
has little gracious kindly ways which remind one of
Mother, and often melt Betty's heart when she has most
reason to be indignant with him. I do not know what
it is that makes me uneasy about him, except that he
never seems to me to do anything he does not like. He
will work in the harvest time as hard as any of the men
and do as much; but no efforts of mine or Betty's can
get him up in the mornings, although he knows how
angry Father is about it, and how hard we all have to
work to make up for it. He will wander away for a




34                THE DIARY OF
day's shooting or fishing, just when every one is busiest,
and then return with birds or fish, and a jest, which
pacifies Betty, but not Father, and makes Mother sad.
He loses or spoils his own things, and comes on all of
us and claims our things, as if their chief use was to
make up for his waste, and then calls us mean and stingy
if we remonstrate, and often succeeds in making us feel
as if we were, when he says, " Is he so ungenerous as
not to share anything with us?" But is it generosity to
share your things with others, if you regard their property as a kind of inexhaustible fund to draw on in
return?
He is never in time for church, although he knows
Mother loves nothing more than to have us all walk into
church together, and the vicar looks quite angry as he
saunters up the aisle, and once even stopped in the
Psalms, so that everybody looked; and sometimes even
he alludes to such habits in his sermons. "How can
people make such a fuss," Jack says, "about a little
thoughtlessness?" But what is at the bottom of thoughtlessness which pains those dearest to us?
It would give me more pleasure than almost anything
to see Jack do anything he really disliked, or give up
anything he really liked, just because it was right. I
am sure Mother is often anxious about him, especially
since Aunt Beauchamp's husband, who is rather a great
man in London, promised to get him a commission in the
army. There are so many terrible temptations in the
army, Mother says, for those who go with the stream.




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             35
I cannot think Jack would ever do anything mean or
disgraceful; but the opposite of right is wrong, and
one never knows where a wrong turn may lead.
When we were children I never saw this. Jack was
the best playfellow in the world. If he got me into
scrapes, he always knew how to get out of them; and if
not, I was quite content to be in disgrace with him; and
if he liked to lead, I liked quite as much to follow. So
I think there never could have been happier children
than we. What princes could have had a better playroom than the dear old court behind the house? with
the felled trees, and the ruinous sheds, and the old
pigeon turret with the winding stairs, and our dog
Trusty, and the cat, and the fowls, and ducks, and
pigeons living in the freedom Betty's love of animals
ensures to them, going where they like, and doing what
is right in their own eyes. It was as good as a fairy
tale any day, and better than 2Esop's Fables, to watch
the stately ways of the cocks, and the system of educa-,
tion pursued by the mother-ducks, and the hens, with
their tender anxieties; and to see the grand patriarchal
airs of Trusty, and the steady, stealthy pursuit of her
own interests by the cat. The farm-yard was a world
to us. The children who lived long ago in this house,
when the three sides of the quadrangle were perfect,
and all was stately and complete, never could have loved
the old house as we do in its ruins.
Then we had the cove by the sea at the end of our
valley-the cove with the white and sparkling sand,




36               THE DIARY OF
vwhich the sea filled at every tide, sometimes creeping in
quiet ripples, but oftener leaping in in great white waves,
far taller than we, and thundering on the shore like
kindly giants pretending to intend to swallow us up,
only we knew them too well to be afraid. What an
enchanted place it was to us. Every day the sea washed
us up something new, some glittering pebble or shell;
and then there was the cave with the white sand heaped
up at the end, and the pool at the entrance, where we
made a causeway "like Alexander the Great at Tyre,"
Hugh Spencer said.
For our happiest days were when Hugh Spencer, the
vicar's son, came to play with us. HTe is three years
older than I am, and he knew so much history that he
was always linking our plays with great men and women
who lived, and great things that were done long ago;
so that playing with him always felt like something real
and great. And then'le had a wonderful history of a
man called Robinson Crusoe, written by a Mr. Defoe,
of London; and although Jack did not like the trouble
of reading, he was always ready to listen to the wonderful stories of the island, and the cave, and the savages.
And Hugh always made a kind of queen of me, being
the only girl, and seemed to think he could never do
enough to save me trouble or to give me pleasure. He
cut those nice steps down to the cove for me, that I
might climb up easily when the tide was in. And he
never would let Jack order me about as he did at other
times. although I had no dislike to it.




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.              37
I suppose't makes a difference to boys not having sisters of their own. Hugh's only sister died when she was
seven years old. One Sunday evening Hugh took me
into his father's study, to see her miniature. Such a little, fair, grave face, with large, thoughtful, open eyesgrave and beautiful as an angel's, I thought. It only
wanted the wings, to be much more like a cherub than
any of the cherubs in church, which the clerk is so proud
of having painted with red cheeks and blue wings.
I suppose the memory of the little sister in heaven
gives Hugh that kind of gentleness he has with little
girls and women-even with Betty.
The memory of that little sister, and of his mother,
who died soon after. He watches Mother, and is as reverent to her as if she were a saint-which, indeed, I
believe she is.
It must make everything seem very sacred to have any
so very near us in heaven.
It does seem as if this world were a more sacred place
to Hugh Spencer than to most people. He looks so differently on many things. For instance, last Sunday, as
we came back from church, Hugh walked with us. As
we came near a miner's village which lies in a hollow
below the church-path, sounds of wild, drunken revelry
came up to us from it.
Jack said, " The miners seem merry to-night."
"That dreadful place!" Hugh said softly to me, for we
were walking behind the rest. "I cannot sleep sometimes for thiuking of it."




38                THIE DIARY OF
" Why?" I said. "Betty says they are not poor."
" No, but they are immortal I" he said; "and I do not
think the name of God is known there except in oaths.
I saw a dying woman there a few weeks since, and she
had never heard of our Lord Jesus Christ."
"Do they never come to church?" I asked.
" Only at weddings or funerals," he said; " and if they
came, what would the beautiful words be to them, untaught and untrained as they are, but so much music?
You might as well talk to an infant in Greek."
" The vicar does say a good deal that is like Greek to
me," I said (for our vicar is a very learned man, and of
course he would not be respected as he is if his thoughts
were always level to the comprehension of the congregation). "He knows so much," I added, fearing I had said
something disrespectful, "of course, one cannot always
expect to understand. The sermons always make me
feel how ignorant I am. It makes one understand, too,
how many wise men there have been in the world-Socrates, and Aristotle, and St. John Chrysostom, and so
many others whose names I cannot even pronouncethat, altogether, it raises one's mind, and humbles one
very much at the same time, only to think how much there
is to be known and how little one knows. And then it
is such a comfort the lessons are always plain."
" But there are people who know as little about Christ
as you do about Socrates," he replied; "and I cannot
help thinking that if St. John Chrysostom, or, far better,
St. Paul himself had been here, they would have found




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.              39
some way to make the people understand-even such
people as those miners."
It was a new thought to me that the sermon could ever
be as plain as the Bible; for Mother never allowed us to
discuss anything said or done in church. I was afraid
we were on dangerous ground.
But Hugh pursued his own thoughts, and said, " I am
going to Oxford soon, and when I have taken my degree,
and learned how the Greeks and Romans used to speak,
before I take orders I should like to go to another kind
of university, to learn how the poor struggling men and
women around us speak and think-to live among the
fishermen on our coasts-to go to sea with them —to share
their perils and privations-that I might learn how to
reach their hearts when I have to preach; and then to live
among such as these poor miners-to go underground
with them-to be with their families when the father
is brought home hurt or crushed by some of the many
accidents, and to speak to them of God and our Saviour
-not on Sundays only, and on the smooth days of life,
but when their hearts are torn by anxiety, or crushed
by bereavement, or softened by sickness or deliverance
from recent danger. Men who have hearts to brave
death over and over again to maintain wife and children,
ought not to be left to die around us as ignorant as the
Heathen."
"But," said I, "you do know all the fishermen and
miners in the county, Hugh, as it is. I am sure they all
greet you when we meet them, like an old friend; and




40                THE DIARY OF
I never heard of any clergyman finishing his studies in
the mines or among the fishermen."
"Did you never hear of any sermons preached on the
sea-shore to fishermen?" he said, in a low, reverent
voice; " or of any life much of which was passed among
the homes of the poor? I sometimes think," he continued,'it would be a good rule if every clergyman
were obliged to begin by being something else, that he
might know what the trials and temptations of ordinary
people are; and that sermons might be more like heart
speaking to heart, and less like a dry metallic echo
of human voices, once living, but silenced long ago in
death."
I was silent for some time. Hugh's words made me
think; but then I thought of Mother, and I said," Mother never lived in fishermen's huts or among
miners. For years she has not been strong enough to
go much beyond the garden, except to church, and her
youth was spent in my grandfather's quiet parsonage;
yet she seems always to understand what every one
feels. People of all kinds pour out their sorrows before
her, and she has words of comfort for all."
"Yes," replied Hugh, thoughtfully.  "Perhaps any
kind of trial which makes the heart tender and deep,
like your Mother's, opens to it the depths of all other
hearts. Perhaps some may learn, like her, to know all
men and women simply by knowing Him so well who
knows what is in all. But every one can scarcely become like your Mother."




MJRS. KITTY T1~EVYL YAN          4
In the evening, when I went out into the kitchen to
toast the bread, Betty said," What a wonderful fine discourse the parson gave
us to-day! It rolled along like the sea."
"What was it you liked so much in it, Betty?" I
asked.
"Bless your heart I" said Betty, " do ye think I would
make so bold as to understand our parson? Why, they
do say there is not such another scholar in all the country.
But it was a wonderful fine discourse. It rolled along
like the waves of the sea."
Thursday, July the Eleventh.
TO-NIGHT, as we were supping, and Hugh Spencer
with us, Betty came, in great agitation, into the
room, and exclaimed that a Church parson had been
mobbed, and all but killed, at Falmouth.
He had been preaching to the people in the open air,
and was staying quietly in Falmouth, when the mob were
excited against him, and, led on by the crews of some
privateers in the harbour, attacked the house in which
he was, swearing they would murder the parson. The
family fled in terror, leaving him alone with one courageous maid-servant. The mob forced the door, filled
the passage, and began to batter down the partition of
the room in which the parson was, roaring out, " Bring
out the Canorum! Where is the Canorum?" Kitty,
the maid, through whom Betty heard of it, exclaimed,
"Oh, sir, what must we do?" He replied, " We must




42               THE DIARY OF
pray." Then she advised him to hide in a closet; but
he refused, saying, " It was best for him to stay just
where he was." But he was as calm as could be, and
quietly took down a looking-glass which hung against
the wall, that it might not be broken. Just then the
privateers'-men, impatient of the slow progress of the
mob, rushed into the house, put their shoulders to the
door, and shouting, " Avast, lads! avast!" tore it down
and dashed it into the room where the clergyman was.
Immediately he stepped forward in their midst, bareheaded, that they might all see his face, and said, " Here
r am. Which of you has anything to say to me? To
which of you have I done any wrong? To you?-or
you?-or you?" So he continued speaking until he had
passed through the midst of the crowd into the street.
There he took his stand, and, raising his voice, said,
" Neighbours, countrymen I do you desire to hear me
speak?" The mob stood hesitating and abashed, and
several of them cried vehemently, " Yes, yes; he shall
speak 1-he shall! Nobody shall hinder him!" and two
of their ring-leaders turned about and swore, not a man
should touch him. Then they conducted him safely to
another house, and soon after he left the town in a boat.
"A brave heart the parson must have had, truly,"
said Father. "I had rather face an army than wait to
be pulled in pieces by a mob. But what did the mob
attack him for?"
"Because he will preach in the fields, Master," said
Betty, " and the people will g< to hear him, and the par



MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAY.              43
sons won't have it, and the magistrates read the Riot
Act on him the day before."
"But parsons and privateers'-men do not usually act
in concert," said Father," and the Riot Act seemed more
wanted for the mob than for the parson?"
" I have heard of them, sir!" said Jack. "Some say
this parson has been sent here by the Pretender. The
common people go to hear him by thousands, and he
speaks to them from a hedge or a door-step, or any
place he can find; and the women cry, and fall into hysterics."
"Not the women only, Master Jack," interposed Betty.
"My brother-in-law, as wild a man as ever you saw, was
struck down by them last summer, and he has been like
a lamb ever since."
"What struck him down, Betty?" said Mother, in a
bewildered tone.
" It is the words they say I" said Betty, —" they are
so wonderful powerful! And they do say they be mostly
Bible words, and the parson is a regular Church parson
-— none of your low-lived Dissenters-and if he comes in
our parts, I shall go and hear him."
"But, Betty, you must take care what you are about,"
said Mother. " There are wolves in sheeps' clothing;
and I do not understand women going into hysterics and
men being struck down. There is nothing like it in the
Acts of the Apostles. I hope, indeed, it is no design of
the Jesuits."
But Betty stood her ground. "I am no scholar, Mis



44               THE DIARY OF
sis," said she; "but I should like to hear the parson that
turned my brother-in-law into a lamb."
"And I," said Father, "should like to see the man
who can quiet a mob in that fashion."
" And I," said Hugh Spencer quietly to me," should like
to hear the sermons which bring people together by
thousands."
I do not know that I should have thought so much
about it if our vicar had not preached about it on the
next Sunday.
The things our vicar preaches about seem generally to
belong to times so very long ago, that it quite startled
us to hear him say that in these days a new heresy had
sprung up, headed by most dangerous and fanatical persons calling themselves clergymen of the Church of England. This -ew sect, he said, style themselves Methodists, but seditiously set all method and order at defiance.
They had set all England and Wales in a flame, and
now, he said, they threatened to invade our peaceful
parish. He then concluded by a quotation from St.
Jerome (I think), likening the heretics of his day to
wolves, and jackals, and a great many foreign wild
beasts. He gave us a catalogue of heresies from the
fourth century onward, and told us he had now done his
part as a faithful shepherd, and we must do ours as
valiant soldiers of the Church.
Betty thought our vicar meant that we should be
valiant like the privateers'-men at Falmouth; but I explained to her what I thought he really meant.




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.               45
But in the evening, as I was reading in the Acts of
the Apostles how the magistrates and the mob seemed to
agree in attacking the Apostles; and about the riot at
Ephesus and the calmness of St. Paul, I wondered if the
Apostle looked and spoke at all like that brave clergyman at Falmouth.
And my dreams that night were a strange mixture of
that old riot at Ephesus, and this new riot at Falmouth,
and Foxe's " Book of Martyrs."
Hugh says the clergyman's name is the Reverend John
Wesley, and that he is a real clergyman, and fellow of a
college at Oxford.




II.
O-DAY a letter came from Aunt Henderson to
Father, inviting him and me to pay a visit to
them and Aunt Beauchamp in London. She
said it would be a pity to let slip this opportunity, it was
time I should be learning something of the world; and
Aunt Beauchamp, who was staying at Bath for the waters,
would fetch me in her coach from Bristol, if we could
get as far as that.
Father would not hear of going himself, saying he
had seen enough of the world, and had done with it;
but he was very earnest that I should go. He said I
ought not to mope my life away in this corner.
Mother turned rather pale, and spoke of the perils
of the world for such a child as me.
But Father would not heed her; he has found u ship
about to sail from Falmouth to Bristol, and he himself
will accompany me thus far. So all is settled, and
Mother says no doubt it is best.'T were a pity my mind
should grow narrow, and I should come to think our
little world was all. But to the primrose in the wood
her world is not narrow; she sees as far around her as
(46




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.              47
the rose in the King's Garden, and looks up all day
through the fretted windows of her countless green leaves
to the sun, and at night, beyond the sun, into God's
world of countless stars.
I do not see how our world can be wider than just so
far along the path God makes for us as He clears the
way for us to see. And I do not see that it need be
wider than home and heaven.
Father and Jack say it shows how much I need a
change, that I am so unnatural as not to wish to go.
And Mother is busy all day ransacking her stores for
remnants of old finery to deck me withal. So I suppose
it is just the path for me, and I must go.
Sunday Evening.
M    Y box is packed, all but the corner into which I
must squeeze my Diary, if it were only for the
precious words at the end in Mother's handwriting.
I am glad, now it is settled, that it is so near. I cannot bear to meet_ Mother's eyes and see her try to smile
as she turns them away, and feel how long they have
been resting on me.
And I cannot bear to see Trusty watch me in that
wistful way and hammer his tail on the floor, whenever
I look at him. The poor beast knows so well I am
going. away, and I cannot tell him why, or how soon I
shall be back again. And I know to-morrow evening
he will come snuffing about all my things, and up to the
empty chair where I sit, and then go to Miother and sit




48               THE DIARY 01
down gravely before her and whine, and feel as if I had
forsaken him and done his faithful heart a wrong. And
no one will be able to explain it to him.
Oh, I wish I were back again, or that things need
never change!
A terrible thought came to me to-night as we were all
sitting quiet in the great hall window, after we had sung
the evening hymn.
I thought how what made me dread this parting is
only because it is a faint uncertain shadow of the dreadful certain changes that must, must come; and that
every day of these happy unvarying days we are going
on, hand in hand, and heart to heart, on and on,
always, always to the point where our hands must be
unclasped.
Partings are terrible because they are the foreshadowings of death.
But life, life itself, joyous growing life itself, is leading
us on to death!
These vague yearnings and regrets, and presentiments
of evils'which perhaps do not come-they are not vague,
they are not delusive; they are indeed but shadows, but
echoes; but they are shadows from the valley of the
shadows, which is the one only certainty life brings us;
they are echoes of farewells which must be said at lastand not answered!
Mother came in as I had finished these words, and
brought me some little bags of lavender she had just
finished to lay in my linen. She saw I had been crying,




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             49
and bade me go to bed at once, and finish my packing in
the morning.
Then she knelt down with me by the bedside, as she
used when I was a little child, and said the Lord's
Prayer aloud with me, and saw me safely into bed, and
tucked me in as when I was a little child, and kissed me,
and wished me good night in her own sweet, quiet voice.
But when she went away I cried, and almost wished
she had not come.
All the days and nights I am away from her shall I
not feel like a child left alone in the dark?
But then came on me the echo of her voice saying,
"Our Father which art in heaven," and if I can keep that
in my heart, I cannot feel like a child alone in the dark.
I suppose that is why our dear Saviour taught it to
us, and not only taught it us, but said it with us, that we
might feel, as it were, His hand in ours when we say it,
and so be wrapped all round with love.
Hackney, May the Twentieth.
IT has happened as Mother said. The first few days
were dreadful. I felt like a ghost in another world,I mean a kind of heathen ghost in a world of shadows it
did not belong to.
But now the world begins to look real to me again,
especially as eight days of my absence are really over,
and I am all that truly and surely nearer home.
Mother stood like a white statue at the door when I
rode away on the pillion behind Father; Jack laughed




50                THE DIARY OF
and made jests, partly to cheer me up and partly to show
himself a man; Betty hoped I should come back safe
again, and find them all alive, "but no one ever knew;"
and then she cried, and her very dismal forebodings
and her honest tears were, somehow or other, the most
comforting thing that happened to me that morning; for
Betty's tears opened the flood-gates for mine, and then her
forebodings roused my spirit to find refuge against them;
and the only refuge I could find was to fly from all the
uncertainty straight to Him with whom all is life and certainty; to fly from circumstances to God himself, and say,
-"Thou knowest. Thou carest. Keep them and me."
And then I became calm, and could even talk to
Father as we rode along, and think of the last requests
I wanted to make for the animals and the flowers, which
had to be cared for while I was gone.
Hugh Spencer met us on the shore, and helped us on
board with my trunk. I do not remember that he said
anything particular to cheer me, but I felt better for
seeing him. And I begged him to go and see Mother
often. And it comforts me to think he will, until next
month, when he is going to Oxford.
It was fortunate for me that there was a poor sick
woman on board who had a little child, which, as she
was too ill to notice it, fell to me to take care of; because it made me feel that God had not left this piece of
my life out of his care, but would find something for me
to do.  And, besides, the pleasure of little children
always makes one happy in spite of one's self.




MRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN              51
When we landed at Bristol it was in a small degree
like leaving home again. The little child clung around
me so lovingly, and the poor woman was so grateful.
She said she could never thank me enough for being so
condescending.
She took me for a great lady. That must have been
because of Father's looks. It did make me proud to see
how noble he looked in his plain old suit of clothes.
Every one knew he was a " born gentleman;" and when
cousins met us in their velvets, and laced suits, and hats,
I thought he looked like a prince in disguise among
them.
It is worth while coming into the world a little, if
only to learn what Father is.
And cousins felt it too.  One of the first things
Cousin Harry said to me when we were all in the coach
on our way to London was,"Your father looks like an old general, Kitty. One
would never think he had been rusticating for a quarter
of a century among the Cornish boors."
"Captain Trevylyan could not fail to look like a gentleman and a soldier," said his father, Sir John Beauchamp.
I like Sir John's manners far better than Cousin
Harry's. He is so grave and courteous, and attends to
all I say as if I were a princess, in the old cavalier manner Father speaks of; and never swears unless he is
very angry with the groom, or the coachman. But
Harry spices his conversation with all kinds of scarcely




52               THE DIARY OF
disguised oaths, and interrupts not me only but his
mother and Cousin Evelyn, and is as fiee and easy as
if he had known me all my life.
Yet I think he is good-natured, for once when I
coloured at some words he used, he was quite careful for
an hour or two. Cousin Evelyn and he had most of the
conversation to themselves, although Evelyn was not
very talkative.  Frequently when I looked at her I
found her large dark eyes resting on me, as if she were
reading me like a book. Aunt Beauchamp was busied
among her furs and perfumes, and seemed every now
and then on the point of going into hysterics when the
horses dashed round a corner into a village, or the carriage jolted on the rutty road.
In one place not far from Bristol she was very much
frightened. We had to stop while way was made for
us through the outskirts of a large mob who were
collected to hear a great preacher called Whitefield.
Uncle Beauchamp says he is a wild fanatic, and that the
magistrates were not worth their salt if they could not
put such fellows down. Aunt Beauchamp said we might
as well travel through some barbarous country as be
stopped in the King's highroad by a quantity of dirty
colliers, who made the air not fit to breathe.
But as we waited I could not help noticing how very
orderly the people were. Thousands and thousands all
hanging on the words of one man, and so quiet you could
hear your own breathing! All quite quiet, except that
as I listened I could hear repressed sobs from some, both




MJRS. KITTY TREVYLYAL.           53
men and women, and I saw tears making white channels
down many of the sooty faces.
And the preacher had such a clear wonderful voice.
He seemed to speak without effort. His whole body, indeed, not only his tongue, seemed moved by the passion
in him, but the mighty musical voice itself flowed easily
as if in familiar conversation, and the fine deep tones
were as distinct on the outskirts of the crowd where we
stood as if he had been whispering in one's ear. He
looked like a clergyman, and the words I heard were
very good. He was speaking of the great love of God
to us all, and of the great sufferings of our Lord for
us all.
I should have liked to stay and listen with the colliers.
I never heard music like that voice; yet the words were
more than the voice; and oh, the reality is more than
the words! It made me feel more at home than any
words since Mother's last prayer with me; and I should
like Hugh Spencer to have been there.
Uncle Beauchamp asked me soon after we had gone
on, what made me look so thoughtful.
I said I was wondering if these were like the people
they called Methodists in Cornwall, who came together
in thousands to hear a clergyman called Wesley preach.
"Are they there too?" said Uncle Beauchamp. " Con'
found the fellows, they are like locusts. The land is
full of them, but if ever they set their feet near Beau
champ Manor, I shall know how to give them their deserts!"
3




54               THIE DIARY OF
"They have met their deserts in more places than one,
sir," said Harry; and he proceeded to relate a number
of anecdotes of Methodist preachers being mobbed, and
beaten, and dragged through horse-ponds; which seemed
to amuse him very much.
But they made me think again of Foxe's " Book of
Martyrs."
Suddenly Cousin Harry paused, and said," Cousin Kitty looks as grave as if she were a Methodist herself; and as fierce as if she could imitate the
Methodist woman who once knocked down three men in
defence of a preacher they were beating."
" I cannot see any fun in hundreds of men setting on
one and ill-using him," I said.
"Well said, little Englishwoman," interposed Uncle
Beauchamp. "I have no doubt if she did not knock the
assailants down, she would have picked the preacher up
and dressed his wounds, in face of any mob."
"I hope I should, Uncle," I said.
And since that, Uncle Beauchamp generally calls me
his little Samaritan.
But Aunt Beauchamp checked the further progress of
the conversation by languidly observing that she thought
we had been occupied long enough with colliers, and
mobs, and Methodists, and all kinds of unwashed people.
" John Wesley is certainly not that," said Harry. " He
looks as neat and prim as a court chaplain."
"Is the fellow a dandy too?" exclaimed Uncle Bear
champ, —"' more contemptible even than I thought."




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
"Dandy or not," said Harry, combatively, "I have
heard he is a gentleman."
"At all events he is not a dandy of Harry's school,"
said my Cousin Evelyn, " whose highest style is that of a
groom unwashed from the stable."
Thus the discourse glided off'to the subject of dress,
which proved to be inexhaustible, and my russet travelling
suit did not fail to come in for much good-humoured
ridicule, although Mother had Miss Pawsey the milliner,
express from Truro, to make it, and she comes up to Lon
don at least once in three years to learn the fashions.
It was three days before we reached London. And
then I was not so much surprised with it as my cousins
wished.
The streets were certainly wider, and the househigher, and the shops grander, and I saw more sedan
chairs, coaches, and magnificent footmen in an hour than
I had seen in all my life before. But that seemed to me
all the difference. The things man makes seem to me,
after all, so very much alike, only a little larger or smaller,
or a little richer or poorer.
The great wonder is the people, and that is quite bewildering. Because the stream never ceases flowing, any
more than the river or the sea at home.
I wonder if it is like the river, or like the sea; I mean,
if'it is really the flowing on of the river, the stream
always the same, and the drops always different; or if
it is more like the waves beating on the shore, the waves
always different, but the water always the same, heaving,




56               THE DIARY OF
tossing, struggling, beaten back, pressing on again, and
again, and again.
I think it is more like the sea.
And so many of the faces look so white and wan and
defeated, as if the people had been tossed and broken
and beaten back so very often. Only God will not let
his human creatures struggle and be tossed about and
baffled for nothing. I am quite sure of that.
What a blessing it is that the things we are dim and
doubtful about are only the things half way up, and that
at the very top of all, all is perfectly clear and radiantly
bright!
For God our Father is there; and His Son the Lord
Jesus Christ, who is also the Son of man, is there; and
God is love.
Yes, at the top of this mountain of the.world are not
cold snows and empty space, but heaven and God. And
when we are there too, every thing will be clear to us,
as it is to Him.
And meantime, Thou Thyself, 0 Blessed Saviour, art
with us here; and Thou, who lovest each of us more than'
our dearest friend, more than Mother loves me, and
knowest all things, and knowest God, art satisfied that
all is right.
And I am satisfied too.
Only I wish the preacher I heard near Bristol, Mr.
Whitefield, could speak to these poor London crowds. I
think he might comfort them. Perhaps he has spoken to
them, and has helped those who would listen.




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYA.                7
Hackney, near London.
T    HE place Aunt and Uncle Henderson live in is
called Hackney. I had no idea a merchant's house
could be as pretty as this is. Father always spoke of his
Sister Henderson as " Poor Patience," implying that she
had lowered herself irremediably by marrying a " tradesman." But I find that Aunt Henderson as commonly
speaks of Father as " my poor brother," apparently regarding Cornwall as a kind of vault above ground, in which
we led a ghostly existence, not strictly to be called life.
And indeed as to what are called riches, handsome
furniture and costly clothes, Aunt Henderson is certainly
right.
God's riches, of which the Bible says the earth is full,
overflowing from heaven as from a fountain over-full, are
of course hersas well as ours, if she would look, so that
they do not count in the comparison.
It is very strange to me the idea some of the people
in London seem to have, as if the rest of the world were
a-kind of obscure outskirts of this great town.
Aunt Beauchamp and my cousins seemed in a polite
way quite grateful that I did not eat with my fingers, or
talk like a ploughboy. They condescended to wonder
that I had such a pretty manner, considering that I had
seen none of " the world."
And Aunt Henderson, I believe, is sincerely thankful
that I have not a hump, or long ears, or any other appendage that might be expected in a human being born
out of " town."




58               THE DIAR Y OF
But since London is not the City of the Great King
nor even the centre of the earth, perhaps the wonder is
not so very great after all,
There is a nice large garden behind the house, and my
bedroom looks over it across a long reach of marshy
ground to a range of blue hills which look wavy like our
moors. I feel suie there must be furze and heather there,
and a kind of longing has possessed me every morning to
feel my feet on the turf again, and smell the flowers. One
morning I rose early to walk to them. But as I was
leaving the garden, Uncle Henderson came down in his
night-cap and Indian dressing-gown, quite breathless with
hurry, and said," Child, where are you going at this time of day?"
"I am going to those hills, Uncle," I said. "They look
like the hills at home. I am used to long walks, and I
think I can be back by breakfast-time."
He looked at me with a kind of compassionate kindness, as one would on a half-witted person, and taking
my hand led me back to the house.
At breakfast Aunt Henderson told me never to venture alone outside the garden walls. " And as for Hampstead," she said, " neither your uncle nor I nor any respectable citizens like to be seen there, since they have
set up that wicked place at Belsize, where they meet to
dance and gamble. Besides, the roads are infested with
highwaymen. Child, I tremble to think what would have
become of you.'




MIRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             59
To comfort me Uncle Henderson took me in form
round the garden after breakfast, and.showed me.a great
many young, new, spiky little trees, which he said had
come from all kinds of places I never heard of, and one
of which he said was the only one in England.
After that I could not help looking with respect and
even a kind of tender interest on the puny banished
trees, although it was impossible for me quite to agree
with my aunt, who said she did not see how any person
with a well-regulated mind could ever desire to wander
beyond such a garden as Uncle Henderson's.
Before now I have always said my morning prayers
looking towards those blue hills. Which way shall I
look now?  I can look straight up to the sky; for my
other window looks towards London, with its smoke and
its dull world of houses, and its sea of people.
Yet perhaps that is the best way to turn my prayers,
after all. For the Bible says, God looks on the earth
" to behold the children of men."  After all, the hills are
only perishable dust, and in the city are the imperishable souls.
It is those poor wan men and women who were made
in the image of God, not this beautiful earth.
And perhaps even the stars themselves are only perishable dust compared with the men and women toiling
and struggling in that great city.
If there is one heart suffering there, surely our Saviour
cares more for it than for all the things in the world:
and I am afraid there must be so manj I




6o                THE DIARY OF
And if there is one heart praying there —and surely
there are thousands-that heart is nearer God and more
sacred than the highest star.
I wonder if God meant me to come to London partly
to learn that.
The sea and the hills and the skies are so glorious.
But God cares more for any poor, fallen, suffering human
creature than for all the skies and hills and seas together. Hugh Spencer has often said so.
But I never felt it so much as now, since I heard the
preacher near Bristol, bringing tears down those rough
black faces, just with speaking to them about God and
our Saviour.
Uncle Henderson is a Dissenter.
Mother warned me a little against this. But I find
they have their own good books, just as we have, although
they are not the same.
Quite a different set of names there are on the bookshelves in the best parlour; Baxter and Howe and Owen,
and a number of tall, old books, bound in calf, which do
not look much read, and which seemed to me to go on
very much the same from page to page, with very long
paragraphs.
It must be out of one of these books, I think, Uncle
Henderson reads the sermon on Sunday evenings, because it seems to go round and round just like that without getting on; so that one never knows when the end
is coming, which I think is a pity. It is so much easier




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.              61
to bear anything patiently if one can only see the end,
although it may be ever so far off:'
Some of the books, however, seem to me as good as
Bishop Taylor, and easier to understand, especially
"The Saint's Rest," by Mr. Baxter, and a small book
called " The Redeemer's Tears over Lost Souls," by Mr.
Howe.
There are also some new hymns, some of which are delightful, composed by Dr. Watts and by Dr. Doddridge.
I do not think Mother knows anything of all these
good people. She will be pleased when I tell her. It
is so pleasant to think how many more good books and
men there are and have been in the world than we
knew of.
Uncle Henderson, however, does not seem at all pleased
with Mother's good books. When he asked me one day
what we read at home on the Sabbath, and I told him
(although Mother does not read her religious books only
on Sunday), he shook his head very gravely at Bishop
Taylor, and said he was very much in the dark, quite an
Arminian, indeed, if n6t a Pelagian, besides his natural
short-comings in common with all Prelatists.
Then I said that Mother's principal good book was the
Bible, and that I liked it much the best of all.
And Uncle and Aunt Henderson both said," Of course, my dear, no one disputes that."
Uncle Henderson always calls Sunday " the Sabbath."
I daresay it is just as right a name. But I do not like
it so much. It sounds like the end instead of the be



62                THE DIARY OF
ginning. The Lord's Day is the first day of the week
now, not the last, as in the old Jewish times, and I cannot at all see that Sunday is a " Heathen name," as Uncle
Henderson says. Because, certainly, the sun is not heathen, and I like to think of Sunday as a kind of sunrise
and dawn among the days.
Neither do I like the service in Uncle Henderson's
chapel very much.
At home the sermon was very often beyond my understanding, but then there were always the prayers, and
the psalms and lessons. But here the prayer seems as
difficult as the sermon, and is nearly as long, and all in
one piece without.any break.  And when it is done I
feel as if I had been only hearing about sacred things
instead of speaking to God (although, of course, that is
my own fault).   The minister does not preach about
Socrates and St. Jerome, like our vicar; but somehow
or other, when he speaks about God and the Lord Jesus
Christ, it seems just the same as if they had lived in the
past, and made decrees and done great things a long time
ago.
But I do not think the people generally like it much
more than I do. They seem so very glad to go. They rise
the moment the blessing is finished (there is a rustling
of silks and a settling of dresses long before), put on
their hats, and seem to try which can get out first.
Uncle Henderson says they put on their hats to
show that we must h ve no superstitious reverence for
places.




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.               63
The sermons are very long. Last Sunday there wera
five-and-twenty heads. And each head was nearly as
long as our vicar's Christmas Day sermon, which certainly
is always rather short on account of the puddings.
And the people do not look interested. They are all,
however, very handsomely dressed. Aunt Henderson
says she has counted five coaches at the door; almost as
many, she says, as there are at the church Lady Beauchamp attends at the West End.
I suppose the poor go somewhere else. I should like
to know where.
Uncle Henderson says this was quite a celebrated
chapel in the days of the old Puritans. The minister
used to preach in it, and the people to come to it, at the
risk of their lives, or at the least of having their ears slit,
and being beggared by fines.
I should like to have seen the congregation then.
Probably none of them went to sleep. I suppose the poor
came there then; and the coaches went somewhere else.
On our way home from the chapel to-day I saw where
the poor people go.
It was in a great open space called Moorfields. Thousands of dirty ragged men and women were standing
listening to a preacher in a clergyman's gown. We
were obliged to stop while the crowd made way for us.
At first I thought it must be the same I heard near Bristol, but when we came nearer I saw it was quite a different looking man; a small man, rather thin, with the




64                THE DIARY OF
neatest wig, fine sharply cut features, a mouth firm
enough for a general, and a bright steady eye which
seemed to command the crowd. Uncle Henderson said," It is John Wesley."
His manner was very calm, not impassioned like Mr.
Whitefield's; but the people seemed quite as muchmoved.
Mr. Whitefield looked as if he were pleading with the
people to escape from a danger he saw but they could
not, and would draw them to heaven in spite of themselves. Mr. Wesley did not appear so much to plead as
to speak with authority. Mr. Whitefield seemed to throw
his whole soul into the peril of his hearers. Mr. Wesley
seemed'to rest with his whole soul on the truth he spoke,
and by the force of his own calm conviction to make every
one feel that what he said was true. If his hearers
were moved, it was not with the passion of the preacher;
it was with the bare reality of the things he said.
But they were moved indeed. No wandering eye was
there. Many were weeping, some were sobbing as if
their hearts would break, and many more were gazing as
if they would not weep, nor stir, nor breathe, lest they
should lose a word.
I wanted so much to stay and listen. But Uncle Henderson insisted on driving on.
"The good man means well, no doubt," he said, "but
he is an Arminian. He has even published most dangerous, not to say blasphemous, things against the immutable
divine decrees."
And Aunt Henderson said,



MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.              65
"It might be all very well for wretched outcasts such
as those who were listening, but we, she trusted, who attended all the means of grace, had no need of such wild
preaching."
But he was not speaking of the immutable decrees
to-day, nor of anything else that happened long ago. He
was speaking of the living God, and of the living and the
dying soul, of the Saviour dying for lost sinners, of the
Shepherd seeking the lost sheep.
And I am so glad, so very glad, the lost sheep were
there to hear.
Because in Uncle Henderson's chapel it seems to me
there are only thefound sheep, or those who think they
are found; and they do not, of course, want the good
news nearly so much, nor, perhaps on that account, do
they seem to care so much about it.
I wonder if the Pharisees, when they said our Lord
was beside himself, thought His parables might nevertheless be of some use to those who did not (as they did)
"attend all the means of grace."
I have found a friend.
At the end of Uncle Henderson's garden he has fitted
up a little house where an aged aunt of his lives with one
servant to take care of her. Every one calls her Aunt
Jeanie.
She is a widow more than seventy years of age. Her
husband was killed when she and he were quite young,
which is perhaps oi.e reason why her heart seems to have




66               THE DIARY OF
kept so fresh and young. He was killed by King James'
soldiers who were sent to disperse a congregation of
poor people to whom he was preaching in the open air
on the Scotch hills, just, I suppose, as Mr. Whitefield and
Mr. Wesley preach to the poor people now.
But Aunt Jeanie does not seem to have a bitter thought
about it. "How should she," she says, "now that the
sorrow is so nearly over?" At first, indeed, she did feel
bitter; but what is the use of God sending us affliction
unless it takes the bitterness out of us? And now the
years of separation are so nearly over, and her Archie,
who has all these years been growing like her Lord, will
be waiting to welcome her home.
"But then," I said one day, " it would have been sweeter
to be prepared on earth together. A year in heaven
must make any one so far beyond us on earth; we could
hardly understand each other."
" My poor bairn, what thought have you then of the
holiness of the saints? It is the pride, lassie, that separates us from one another, not the goodness. I know
well the greatest saint in heaven would be easier to speak
to than many a poor sinner on earth. Have you forgotten the Lord himself, and how he let the sinful woman
kiss his feet?"
Aunt Jeanie always calls me either my bairn or lassie.
I cannot, of course, write down her Scotch, but it has an
unspeakable charm to me. Her voice has a tender cadence in it I never heard in any English voice. It touches
me ]Fke an echo of some voice dear and familiar long ago.




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.              67
She has beautiful histories to tell me of good people.
She has known so many. Best of all I like to hear hei
speak of the family of Mr. Philip Henry of Broad Oak
in Flintshire.  The farm-house plenty and homeliness
about the life, blended with such learning and piety, seem
to me so very beautiful.
The family prayers in the great farm-house kitchen;
the brother and four sisters all growing up in the double
sunshine of the love of God and of their parents; the
father in his study, or preaching, or visiting the prisoners or the sick; the mother, like the woman in the Proverbs, rising while it is yet night, " giving meat to her
household, and a portion to her maidens," stretching out
her hands to the poor, yea, reaching out her hands to
the needy;-it all seemed as simple and sacred and happy
as a bit of the Bible.
Then old Mr. Henry had such good sayings. "Prayer
is the key of the morning and the bolt of the night," is
one which I have written at the end of Mother's words
from the " Golden Grove."
Yet this holy family were all Presbyterians.
Aunt Jeanie does not know much of Mother's good
books any more than Uncle Henderson, but she does not
shake her head when I speak of them. She says,"There is no saying the strange ways by which people
may get to heaven, if only they love the Lord Jesus
Christ and try according to their light to follow him.
Was there not actually an English minister, calling himself Archbishop of Glasgow, in the worst days of the




68               THE DIARY OF
Prelatists, who wrote a book on the Epistles of St. Peter,
than which John Knox himself could not have written a
better?"
So whenever I am more than usually wearied or perplexed by anything in Uncle Henderson or his chapel, I
creep out to Aunt Jeanie, and she puts me all right again.
Sometimes she smiles drily, and says, " I am doubtless
a wise bairn, as wise as the man in the Spectator who
turned the'Whole Duty of Man'into a book of libels,
by writing his neighbour's name opposite each particular
sin." Sometimes she smiles tenderly, and says, I am a poor
bewildered lamb, and fears "the wilderness is rougher
and drier than usual just now for the little ones, since it
perplexes even those who have been toiling long; but
the Good Shepherd," she adds, "doubtless knows the
way, and will guide His own all the more tenderly because it is difficult."
Yet Aunt Jeanie is a Presbyterian and I think a Puritan, as much as Uncle Henderson (the things of all others
Father hates); and indeed I think she is worse. Her
husband at least was a Covenanter; and whatever that
means, I know it is something exceedingly dangerous,
because I remember our vicar, speaking of it when he
was congratulating us on living in such a Christian
country, spoke of the "seditious canting Covenanters"
as the lowest depth of the degradation to which Presbyterians had reduced Scotland.
Dead Puritanism seems to me a very terrible thing.
There is just the death without the balms or the spices,




MRIS. ITTY TREVYLYA..              69
or the beautiful sepulchre. Yet perhaps it is as well
dead religions should look dead, that people may know
it all the sooner and turn and seek for life where it is to
be found.
But how beautiful Christian life seems in any form, and
how much alike, whether in Mother or Aunt Jeanie  Alike
in being life, and yet how delightfully unlike in each!
Cousin Tom Henderson has come home. He has not
Cousin Harry Beauchamp's free and easy manners. He
seemed at first very shy and awkward, but now he is getting used to me and I to him; we are quite friends, and
his large questioning eyes which at first gleamed so suspiciously from under his shaggy eyebrows now meet mine
quite confidingly.
To-day, as we walked in the garden after the service
in the chapel, he said to me,
" Cousin Kitty, could you ever remember the heads?"
" Our sermons never had any heads," I said, " they were
all in one piece."
" Then I suppose you did not mind going to chapel?"
he said.
" I always liked going to church," I said.
" Why did you like it?" he asked.
"Mother liked it so much," I said, "and then it was
Sunday, and something different, something better and
more than any other day, and the cornfields never seemed
to look so golden, or the sea so bright as when I walked
to church w:th Mother's hand in mine. And coming




70               THE DIARY OF
home she let me gather a nosegay of wild flowers, and
they and all the world always seemed fresh and clean as
if they had a kind of Sunday clothes on like the rest of
us. That was when I was a child, and now I like Sunday and going to church for a thousand reasons."
"Were you allowed to gather flowers on Sunday?"
said Tom. " Did Sunday seem something better and MORE
to you? It was always something less to me. I was not
allowed to read the books I liked, or do the things I
liked. Certainly such a walk to church, and a sermon
without heads would have made a difference. But then
nurse always said it was no wonder I did not like the
Sabbath, because I was not converted. Cousin Pitty,"
he added abruptly, looking earnestly in my face, "are
you converted-?"
The question startled me very much, and I did not
know what answer to give.
" Because," said Tom, "you know God does not love
any one who is not converted."
"I am sure God loves me, Tom," I said, " if that is
what you mean. How could I be so wicked as to doubt
it for an instant, when He has done me nothing but good
all my life long, and has forgiven me so many wrong
things that I have said and done, and has borne with me
so gently, and shown me my sins, and helped me against
them whenever I have really asked Him?"
"But all that is nothing, they say," said Tom, " unless
you are converted, and you know you cannot always
have been conve ted. No one is."




MRS. KITTY TlEVYL YA       i       71
"But then there is the Cross, Tom," I said. "There
is the Cross I How can I doubt that God loves me when
I think of the Cross?"
"But they say the Cross will sink us lower in hell than
anything else unless we are converted," said Tom. Then
seeing me begin to cry, for I could not help it, he added
in a gentle tone,"Do not cry, Cousin Kitty. Perhaps you are converted; you attend the Lord's Supper, do you not? so
perhaps you are. It does seem as if God had been very
good to you."
There was something so sad and bitter in the emphasis
which he gave to that " you," that I forgot my own perplexities altogether in pity for him, and I said," Cousin Tom, God is good to every one. The Bible
says so. He is good to every one because He is good,
not because we are good. I cannot tell about being converted, but I am sure of that."
But at night when I was alone in my room, and opened
my Bible, and knelt down by it, and made it all into a
prayer, it all seemed to become clear to me.
Our Lord does certainly say, " Except ye be converted,
and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the
kingdom of heaven."
He said it to the disciples when they were debating
who should be tle greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
To the poor wandering multitudes he said not, "Be
converted," but "Come unto Mek."




72               THE DlaRY OF
Then it came into my heart.
" Lord, I do come unto thee.  I have come before.
But I come again now-to thee, to thee. I turn to thee,
I would not turn from thee for the world. Is that to be
converted? See, I am at thy feet; and if not, see, I am
at thy feet, and thou wilt surely do the rest, since thou
knowest what I want, if I do not. Lord I am a little
child-thou knowest I am helpless, weak, unable to lead
myself.  Heavenly Father, I am a helpless little child,
and thou art our Heavenly Father. I am not a little
child half as much as I should like in truthfulness and
simplicity, but I am a little child in wanting thee, in
being able to do nothing without thee. Not because I
am child-like, Heavenly Father, but because I am helpless, help me. Not because I am converted, 0 gracious
Savi6ur, but because I want thee, help me; not because
I love thee (and yet I do love thee), but because thou
lovest me, because thou diedst for my sins, help and save
me. And help that other poor wandering sheep who
does not seem to have come back to thee at all, and
save him, not because he is returning, but because he is
wandering, and it is so wretched to wander in the world
without thee 1"
I never lay down to sleep with a happier feeling than
that night.
The next time Tom and I were alone (it was by the
window in the best parlour, Uncle was smoking a quiet
pipe in the garden-house, aad aunt was taking a dish of
tea with a friend), I said'" Cousin Tom, I have been




MRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN              73
thinking of what you said, and you must not say God
does not love you because you are not converted. I am
sure that is not true. Because, our Saviour goes after
the sheep when they are actually wandering and lost,
which cannot be the same as being converted. And, of
course, He goes after them, because He is loving them.
But you must be converted, Cousin Tom," I said.
His tone was altered from the time he had spoken
last, it was not so much sad as bitter and sarcastic, and
he said,"Cousin Kitty, you are a poor theologian. How am I
to be converted unless God convert me?"
I did not know what to say, until at last I said,
and I am afraid it could not have been the right
thing," God is converting you-taking you by the hand, as it
were, to turn you round-I mean He is doing all He can,
He is calling you, watching you, pitying you, seeking you
in a thousand ways, He only knows how many and how
often."
"Then I suppose it will be all right one day," said
Tom, " for who hath resisted His will?"
I was very much grieved, his tone was so bitter, and
I could not help saying, it came so forcibly into my
heart," Cousin Tom, you are resisting His will, with all your
might-you will not come back to our Saviour."
"And you are contradicting St. Paul, Cousin Kitty,"
he said.




74               TIIIE DIARY OF
"How I wish you could hear Mr. Whitefield or Mr.
Wesley," I said, for J. felt my logic failing.
" Father says Mr. Wesley is an Arminian," said Tom,
with a satirical smile; "but perhaps you are little better.
Mother always said poor Sister Trevylyan was little better than a Papist."
At first I felt angry at his levity, but then all at once
I thought it was only the laughter of a heart ill at ease,
and I said gently," Cousin Tom, you know you do not care in the least
whether Mr. Wesley is a Calvinist or an Arminian. I
am sure you are unhappy about something this evening.
Can I help you? Jack says it often helps him just to tell
me anything, and you have no sister."
"Nor any one that cares for me," said Tom.
" Oh, Tom," I said, "you must not say Uncle and Aunt
do not care for you." 
He had been sitting with his elbows on his knees and
his hands on his face; now he rose, and said in a low
voice, like the grinding of an iron heel on stone,"No doubt they care that I should grow rich / But,
Kitty, this life is more than I can bear. While you are
here it is a little more cheerful, but in a few weeks you
will be gone, and it will be duller than ever. It is one
incessant'Thou shalt not,' from one end of the year to
the other; or only one' Thou shalt,' to counterbalance
it,' Thou shalt make money and be rich;' Thou shalt
not go to the play, thou shalt not dance.' And I do go
to the theatre and to the opera when I can. It does me




AMS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.              75
less harm, I am sure, than sitting at home and hearing
Aunt Beauchamp and Cousin Harry and nine-tenths of
our acquaintance pulled to pieces as reprobates. But I
dare not tell father, because he would never believe I
do these things without doing a thousand worse things
which I do not. So I am living a lie, and I hate myself
for it, yet I see no way out of it."
" There is a way out of it," I said. "You must give
it up. It is better to lead the dullest life in the world
than to do wrong, and I am sure you would find it
happier."
"There is one thing I will not do, Cousin Kitty, I will
not be a hypocrite. I will not put on a smooth face and
pretend to like all the whining Pharisaical cant I hear.
If I am to go to the bad end, it shall be by the honest
broad road, and not by the narrow prim path of the
Pharisees which leads the same way."
" But, Cousin Tom," I said after a little while, " there
is no need for you to be either bad or a hypocrite. You
can be good, and you must try."
" Do you mean I must be converted?" he said, almost
fiercely.
"I think," I said, "you should give up thinking about
being converted, and should just turn to God, just look
away from your sins and other people's sins, and from
everything to our Saviour, and ask Him to help you to be
really good. Of course, it is all real with Him. And I
am sure He would."
He did not answer, and' went on,



76               THE DIARY OF
"It seems to me you put conversion between you and
Christ, as if it were a kind of shut door to get through,
instead of just going up to the open door. For the door
of the kingdom of heaven is open, I am quite sure. Our
Lord says,'I am the door;' which must mean that there
is no door, no closed door, but that He himself stands at
the entrance instead, to welcome us and lead us in. Think
of the difference between a door and a friend's face. And
then such a Friend I we have done Him so much wrong,
and He is so ready to forgive all; and such a Hand I
pierced to the cross for us. St. Thomas saw the prints
of the nails."
My heart was very full, and when I looked up, Tom
brushed his hand over his face and moved away.
But I went up to him and ventured to say," Cousin Tom, tell Aunt Henderson what you have
told me; I am sure it would be right and perhaps it
might help you both."
"You don't know in the least how hard it would be,
Kitty," he said; " Mother thinks all sins are on the same
level. If I told her I had gone to the opera she would
think me as bad as a thief. And yet," he exclaimed, " I
do not know but I am just as bad. Have I not been
living a lie?"
Just then Uncle Henderson came in, and I went to
join Aunt Henderson in the best parlour.
She was just then comparing poor Aunt Beauchamp's
system of education with her own, and complacently
dwelling on the necessary difference in the results be



M3IS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             77
tween her Tom and poor Harry, who had just, she understood, lost a small fortune in betting on the race-course.
From this she glided into an instructive dissertation on
her household management. Other people, she said, were
always complaining of their servants dressing like their
betters, and even taking tea and snuff. But she never
had such difficulties. She would like to see the hussy
who would sport a silk gown or a snuff-box in her house.
The visitor, a gentle little woman, seemed quite depressed
by my aunt's superiority and soon after took her leave
in a meek and subdued manner.
A large portion of Aunt Henderson's conversation consists in these compassionate meditations on the mistakes
and infirmities of her neighbours. She does this " quite
conscientiously."  "It is so important," she says, "that
we should observe the failures and errors of our neighbours, in order to learn wisdom."
It seems as if Aunt Henderson thought the rest of the
world were a set of defective specimens expressly designed to teach her wisdom, just as we used to have illwritten and misspelt sentences set before us to teach us
grammar.
But I always thought we learned more by looking at
the well-written sentences. In that way one's writing
and spelling grow like the copy without thinking about
it. And it is so much pleasanter to have the beautiful
right thing before one constantly instead of the failure.
Besides, Aunt Henderson's grammar may not be exactly
the standard after all.
4




78                THE DIARY OF
And it must matter just as much how the other copies
are written; at all events, to the people who write them.
I suppose no one is sent into the world exactly to be a
kind of example of failure, even to make Aunt Henderson quite perfect by the contrast. But only to think of
Aunt Henderson calling Mother a Papist I
To-day I had a great pleasure. Last Sunday we went
to another chapel, in Bury Street, and heard the venerable old minister called Dr. Watts preach. It was a
sermon on safety in death, to comfort parents who had
lost little children. And I am sure it must have comforted any one; it went so far into the sorrow with the
balm. Ite spoke of this world as like a garden in a cold
place, from which God, like a careful gardener, took the
tender plants into His own house before the winter came
to spoil them. Yet sweet and touching as it all was for
those whose hearts were already awake to listen, there
was nothing. of the rousing penetrating tones which
awaken those whose hearts are slumbering.
The good old man spoke so tenderly I thought he
must have felt it all himself. But Aunt Henderson says
he is a student and an old bachelor.
And to-day she took me to see the place where he
lives. It is a beautiful park belonging to Sir William
and Lady Abney at Stoke Newington. And there, fiveand-thirty years ago, they brought Dr. Watts to be
their guest for a week when he was lonely, and poor
and in delicate health. And they have kept him there




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.               79
ever since, caring for him like a son, and reverencing
him like a father. He has nice rooms of his own; and
they always are grateful when he joins their circle, so
that he can have as much solitude and as much company
-as he likes, and have the good of riches without the
responsibilities, and many of the pleasures of the familycircle without the cares.
It seems to me such a beautiful use to make of riches.
The holy man's presence must make their house like a
temple; and when the dear aged form has passed away,
I think they will find that the garden-walks, where he
used to converse with them, and the trees under which
he used to sit, and the flowers he enjoyed, will have
something of the fragrance of Eden left on them.
So they have their reward; yet not all of it. There
will be more to come when they see our Lord, and He
will thank them for taking care of His servants.
Dr. Watts writes such beautiful hymns. They have
not the long winding music of John Milton's hymn on
the "Nativity," or Bishop Taylor's in the " Golden
Grove;" but they have a point and sweetness about
them which I like as much, especially when one thinks
that the very best thing in what they sing of is that it
is true, for ever true.
They sang one at the chapel on Sunday, which I shall
never forget:"When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.




so                 TEE DIARY.OF
"Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ, my God 
All the vain things that charm me most
I sacrifice them to his blood.
"See, from his head, his hands, his feet,
Sorrow and care flow mingled down;
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
"Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all."
It made the chapel seem as beautiful to me as any
cathedral while they sang it, because one seemed to look
through it straight into heaven, where our Lord is.
And anything which help us to do that makes it matter
so little whether what we look through is a white-washed
ceiling or a dome like St. Paul's. And then the comfort is, the poor can understand it as well as the most
learned.
While we were at Abney Park, a consumptive-looking
minister from Northampton was there, a great friend of
Dr. Watts. Lady Abney had just brought him from
London in her coach, a gentle-thoughtful-looking man
called Dr. Doddridge. He also writes beautiful hymns,
they say. Lady Abney told me he has a dear little girl
who was once asked why every one loved her? She
looked very thoughtful for a moment, and then said, " I
suppose because I love every one."
To-morrow I am to leave Aunt Henderson to stay




MRS. KITTY TREVYL YAY.             8 
with Aunt Beauchamp at the West End of the town,
in Great Ormond Street. I am afraid Tom has not
made any confession to his mother yet. But he has
promised to try and hear Mr. Wesley, and to go often
to Jeanie.
Aunt Henderson has been talking to me very seriously
about the dangers to which I shall be exposed. She
says poor Aunt Beauchamp's is a thoroughly careless
family, and they live quite in " the world."
Does "the world" then begin somewhere between
Hackney and Great Ormond Street?
Mother seemed to think I should meet it as soon as I
left home.
And the Catechism speaks of our having to renounce
it from infancy, like the flesh and the Devil.
If we have always to be renouncing it, it must be
there, everywhere, always; one thing to Mother, another
to Aunt Henderson, another to Cousin Tom, or Aunt
Beauchamp; one thing to me when I was a child, another
to me now-yet always there, always to be renounced.
What is it then? St. John says, "It is not of the
Father."
Does it mean whatever gift of God we make a pedestal for our pride, instead of making of it a step of God's
throne on which to kr.eel and look up, and adore?




III.
Great Ormond Street.
HEY were all so kind to me when I left Hackney, I felt very sorry to go, and should have
grieved more, had not the leave-taking been
like a half-way house on the journey to my dear home.
Uncle Henderson gave me a purse with five new
guineas in it, saying some people had found a fortune
grow from no bigger beginning, and who knew but my
guineas might expand into a " plum " (a hundred thousand pounds). I do not very well see how, because I
have spent the whole over ten times in my mind already;
but I know it will bring me in pleasures as rich to me
as anything Uncle Henderson could desire for me, if I
can only tell which of the ten plans I have thought of
is the best.
Aunt Henderson gave me a little book with a very
long name, which she hoped would prove, at all events,
more profitable reading than Bishop Taylor. Cousin
Tom had relapsed into something of the shy, half-surly
manner he had when first I came; and his great eyes
were flashing, and his voice was very gruff. But just as
I was getting into the hackley coach, he said abruptly,
(82)




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             83
"Cousin Kitty, forgive me if I spoke roughly to you;
you have been very good to me; and some day perhaps
I will hear Mr. Wesley."  Aunt Jeanie, to whom I paid
a visit early in the morning, gave me nothing-at least
nothing gold and silver can buy or pay for; but, like
the Apostles, such as she had she gave me abundantly.
There were tears in her dear, kind eyes, and she called
me her poor lambie, and fell very deep into Scotch, and
prayed that the good Lord would keep me through all
the perils of the wilderness; "for the world was a
wilderness, no doubt, and temptation was strong. The
Lord forgive her if it was like murmuring to say so, she
had found so many pleasant places on her way; and all
the way had been good to her; and every thorn needful;
and the waste places as wholesome as the Elims; the
water from the rock sweeter even than the foundations
under the palms. And how can I dare be so ungrateful
as to distrust my God for thee, my bairn?" she added.
" If I am old and tough, and able to bear a prick now
and then without shrinking, and thou art young and
tender, and quick to feel, does not He who gathered the
lambs in His bosom know that better than I?"
So we cried together a little while, and then she knelt
down with me for the first time by her bedside, and
poured out her heart for me in tender, pleading words,
that melted all my heart as ice melts in the spring sunshine and rain.
What she said I cannot remember. It was not like
words. It was'like a heart poured out into a heart



84                THE DIIARY OF
a child-like, dependent human heart into the great, infinite, tender heart of God. But when she rose and kissed
me, and bade me farewell, all my heart, which had been
so touched and melted, seemed to have grown strong
and buoyant. It seemed as if every burden became
light, and every task easy, and every grief illuminated
in the light and heat of that prayer.
When I reached Great Ormond Street, the butler said
my lady was still in her chamber, but had directed that
I should be shown up to her at once. I thought this
very affectionate of Aunt Beauchamp, and stepped very
softly, as when Mother has a headache, expecting to enter
a sick-chamber.
But, to my surprise, Aunt Beauchamp was sitting at
her toilette, in a wrapper more magnificent than Aunt
Henderson's Sunday silk. And the chamber was much
more magnificent than the best parlour at Hackney, with
a carpet soft as velvet, and all kinds of china monsters,
on gilded brackets, and rich damask chairs and cushions;
not stiffly set up, like Aunt Henderson's, as if it was the
business of life to keep them in order, but thrown lavishly about, as if by accident, like the mere overflow of
some fairy horn of plenty. Two very elaborately dressed
gentlemen were sitting opposite her; what seemed to
me a beautifully dressed lady was arranging her hair in
countless small curls; while a shapeless white poodle
was curled up in her lap; and a black lage was standing in the background, feeSing a chattering parrot.
"'b ~ YV NY~ldLVILILI VV      ZDl




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYA.N              85
Ii startled me very much; but Aunt Beauchamp, after
surveying me rather critically as I made a profound
courtesy, held out two fingers for me to kiss, and patting
me on the cheek, said, "As rosy as ever, Kitty; the
roses in your cheeks must make up for the russet in
your gown. A little country cousin of mine," she said,
introducing me in a kind of parenthetical way to the
gentlemen in laced coats.
One of the gentlemen looked at me through an eyeglass, as if I had been a long way off, which made me
indignant, and took away my shyness. The other, in a
sky-blue coat, who Deemed to me rather old, rose, and
with an elaborate bow offered me a chair, and hoped it
would be long before I withdrew the light of my presence again from the town. "The planets," he observed,
looking at Aunt Beauchamp,' naturally gathered around
the sun."
Aunt Beauchamp gave a little girlish laugh, tapping
him lightly with her fan, called him a " mad fellow," and
bade me go and seek my Cousin Evelyn.
It seemed to me very strange to see these elderly
people amusing themselves in this way, like old-fashioned
children. Aunt Beauchamp is much older than Mother.
I should think she must be five-and-forty. And the old
gentleman's face looked so sharp and wrinkled under
his flaxen wig. And I could not help noticing how close
he kept his lips together when he smiled, as if he did
not wish to show his teeth. He must be more than fifty.
I felt so sorry Aunt Beauchamnp let her maid put those




86               THE DIARY OF
cherry-coloured ribbons in her hair. They made her
face look so much older and more lined. And it is
a dear, kind old face, too. She looked almost like
Father when she patted my cheek. Father says she was
very beautiful when she was young. I suppose it must
be sad to give up being beautiful. Yet it seems to me
every age has its own beauty. White hairs are as
beautiful at seventy as golden locks at twenty. It is
only by trying to prolong the beauty of one stage into
another that the beauty of both is lost.
I hope I shall know when I am five-and-forty, and not
go on forgetting I am growing old, while every one else
sees it.
I am resolved that on all my birthdays I will say to
myself, " Now, Kitty, remember you are eighteen, nineteen, twenty." And in that way I think old age cannot
take me by surprise.
I found Cousin Evelyn in dishabille, not elaborate, but
real, in her room, one hand holding a novel which she
was reading, the other stroking the head of a great
stag-hound which stood with his paws on her knee, while
her maid was smoothing out her beautiful long hair.
Her greeting was not very cordial; it was kind, but
her large penetrating eyes kept investigating me as they
had on our journey from Bath. Having finished her
toilette and dismissed her maid, she said, " What made
you stay so long at Hackney? Did you not find it very
dull?"




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYA~Y.             87
It had never occurred to me whether it was dull or
not, and I had to question myself before I could answer.
" You need not be afraid to tell me what you think,"
she said. " Mamma thinks Aunt Henderson a self-satisfied Pharisee; and Aunt Henderson thinks us all publicans and sinners; so there is not much communication
between the families. Besides, I suppose you know that
the distance between America and England is nothing
to that between the east and the west of London; so
that, if we wished it ever so much, it would be impossible for us to meet often."
" I am not afraid to tell you anything, Cousin Evelyn,"
I said; " but I never thought very much if it was dull.
It was of no use. I had to be there; and although, of
course, it could not be like home, they were all very
kind to me, especially Cousin Tom and Aunt Jeanie."
" And now you have to be here," she replied; " and I
suppose you will not think whether it is dull or not,
but still go on enduring your fate like a martyr."
"I am not a martyr," I said; "but you know it is
impossible to feel anywhere quite as one does at home."
And I had some difficulty in keeping back the tears, her
manner seemed to me so abrupt and unjust.
Then suddenly her tone changed. She rose, and seating herself on a footstool at my feet, took one of my
hands in both of hers, and said, "You must not mind
me. I think I shall like you. And I always say what
I like. I am only a child, you see," she added, with a
little curl of her lip. " Mamma will never be more than




88               THE DIARY OF
thirty; therefore, of course, I can never be more than
ten."
I could not help colouring, to hear her speak so of her
mother; and yet I could not tell how to contradict her.
She always saw in a moment what one does not like,
and she turned the subject, saying very gently, " Tell
me about your home. I should like to hear about it.
You seem so fond of it."
At first it seemed as if there were nothing to tell.
Every one and everything at home are naturally so
bound up with my heart, that to talk of it seemed like
taking up a bit of myself and looking at it.
But Evelyn drew me on, from one thing to another, until
it seemed as if, having once begun, I could never finish.
She listened like a child to a new fairy tale, leaning her
face on her hands, and gazing on me with her questioning eyes quite eagerly, only saying when I paused, " Go
on-and what then?"
When I spoke of Mother, a tender, wistful look came
over her face, and for the first time I saw how beautiful
and soft her eyes were. That expression, however,
quickly passed, and when at length I came to a long
pause, she said, smiling, "I am glad your Trusty is a
genuine, uncompromising old sheep-dog. I hate poodles."
And then she added in her old dry tone: " It is as good
as a pastoral, and as amusing as a novel. When we go
back to Beauchamp Manor, I will ask papa to build me
a model dairy, and will commence an Arcadian life. It
would be charming."




MARS. KITTY TJlEVYLYAN.            89
"But," I said, bewildered at her seeming to think of me
and Mother and Betty as if we were people in a poem,
"your dairy would be mere play; and I cannot see any
amusement in that, except for children. It is the thought
that I ought to do the things-that the comfort of those
about me depends on my doing them-that makes me
so happy in them."
" The thought that you ought!" she said;-" that is a
word no one understands here.  We do what we like
and what we must. If I thought I ought to go to the
opera or to Vauxhall, I should dislike it as much as
going to church."
"As going to church!" I said.
" Yes," she replied. "I mean at Beauchamp Manor,
where Dr. Humden reads long sermons some dead bishop
wrote centuries ago, in a voice which sounds as dead and
stony as if it came from the effigies of all the Beauchamps
which preside over the church. In town it is different.
The archdeacon never preaches half an hour, and that in
the softest voice, and most elegant language-very little
duller than the dullest papers of the Spectator or the
Tatter. And then, one sees every one; and the performances of the congregation are as good as a play."
Evelyn next gave herself, with real interest, to the inspection of my wardrobe.
It seemed almost like sacrilege to see the things which
had cost Mother so much thought and pains treated with
the imperfectly concealed contempt, which curled my
cousin's lips as she unfolded onre carefully packed article




90               THE DIARY OF
after another. My best Sunday bonnet brought a very
comical twist into her face; but the worst of all was
when I unpinned my very best new dress, which had been
constructed with infinite contrivance out of Mother's
wedding-dress. Evelyn's polite self-restraint gave way,
and she laughed. It was very seldom she gave any token
of being amused, beyond a dry, comical smile; and now
her rare, ringing laugh, seemed to discompose Dragon,
the stag-hound, as much as it did me. He seemed to
feel that he was being laughed at-a disrespect no dog
can ever endure-and came forward and rubbed his nose
reproachfully under my cousin's hand, with a little deprecatory moan, as she held up the dress.
She gave him a parenthetical pat, and then looking up
in my face, I suppose saw the foolish tears that would
gather in my eyes.
"You and Dragon seem aggrieved," she said. "I am
afraid I have touched on sacred ground, Cousin Kitty.
You seem very fond of your things."
"It is not the things," I said; "but Mother and all of
us thought they were so nice; and Miss Pawsey from
Truro does go to London once in every three or four
years; and, besides, she has a Book of Fashions, with
coloured illustrations."
I could not tell her it was Mother's wedding-dress.
Rich people, who can buy everything they want immediately they want it, at any shop, and throw it aside
when they get tired, can have no idea of the little loving
sacrifices, the tender plannings, the self-denials, the will



.MRS. KITTY T1REVYL YAN.           91
ing toils, the tearful pleasures, that are interwoven into
the household possessions of the poor. To Evelyn my
wardrobe was a bad copy of the fashions;-to me every
bit of it was a bit of home, sacred with Mother's thoughts,
contriving for me night and day, with the touch of her
busy fingers working for me, with the quiet delight in
her eyes as she surveyed me at last arrayed in them, and
smoothed down the folds with her delicate neat hands,
and then contemplated me from a distance with a combination of the satisfaction of a mother in her child and
an artist in his finished work. I could not say all this
with a steady voice, so I fell back on the defence of Miss
Pawsey; but she only laughed, and said,"Do you know that three years old is worse than three
centuries? It is all the difference between antiquated
and antique. You would look a great deal more modern
in a ruff and fardingale of one of our great-great-grandmothers in Queen Elizabeth's days. Indeed, I have no
doubt, if I could see Aunt Trevylyan at this moment, I
should think -her quite in fashion compared with those
exactly out-of-date productions of your Falmouth oracle.
We must send for my milliner."
" But Mother thought it so nice, Cousin Evelyn," I said
at length; "I could not bear to have what she took such
pains with pulled to pieces."
She looked up at me again with the soft, wistful look
in her eyes, folded the precious dress together as reverently as I could have done, and, laying it in the trunk,
said very gently,



92                THE DIARY OF
"Do not think any more about it, Cousin Kitty. I
will manage it all."
I have been to the opera and to church, and I cannot wonder so much at Cousin Evelyn comparing the
two.
The gloom of the Hackney Sundays seems cheerfulness itself compared to the dreary week-day glare of
these. At the opera the music was as beautiful as songs
in the woods on a spring morning: it was composed by
a young Saxon gentleman-Mr. Handel. It was very
strange to me that the people attended so little. Aunt
Beauchamp had quite a little court of middle-aged and
elderly gentlemen, to whom she dispensed gracious smiles,
or frowns, which seemed in their way as welcome; pretty
severities with her fan, and laughing rebukes; and
whenever I looked about between the acts, the same
small entertainments seemed going on in the boxes
around me. When the music went on I could see and
hear nothing else.
Evelyn laughed at me when we returned. I actually
was so unsophisticated, she said, as to go to the opera to
enjoy the music.
" What can any one go for else?" I asked. " It is not
a duty."
For the same reason we go church, or anywhere else,"
she rjeplied,-" to meet our fellow-creatures, to play over
our play, or see them act theirs. I could have told you
of three separate dramas going on in tle boxes nearest




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.              93
us, one at least of which is likely to rise into tragedy.You liked the music then?"
"It was as beautiful as a dream," I said; "only I
wished sometimes it was a dream."
"Why?"
"I felt sorry for that modest, gentle-looking young
woman having to talk so much nonsense in public. I
think she could hardly have felt it right."
"You bring right and wrong into everything. You
must not think of the actors as men and women, but as
merely machines."
At church it seemed to me very much the same. Aunt
Beauchamp encountered many of her little court, and distributed her nods and smiles and her deprecatory glances,
as at the play.
During the Psalms people made profound courtesies to
their neighbours in the next pews; and during the Litany
there was a general fluttering of fans and application of
smelling-bottks, as if the confessing ourselves miserable
sinners were too much for the nerves of the congregation. But then it occurred to me that I was as careless as any one, or I should have known nothing of what
the rest of the congregation were about; and it was a
comfort to confess it in the words of the Litany. Afterwards I stood up, and was beginning to join with all my
heart in the Psalm, when Evelyn tapped me lightly, and
said, " No one sings but the professional choir."  Then I
saw that several people were looking at me with con



94                THE DIARY OF
siderable amusement, and I felt ashared of my own
voice, and then felt ashamed of being ashamed.
The sermon was on the impropriety of being righteous
overmuch; and every one said, as they met and exchanged greetings in the porch that it was a most
elegant and able discourse. It was a pity some of the
Methodist fanatics could not hear it. Afterwards many
important arrangements were made as to card-parties
and balls for the ensuing week, or for Sunday evening
itself.
On our way home Aunt Beauchamp said to me, "My
dear child, you really must not say the responses so emphatically, especially those about our being miserable
sinners. People will think you have done something
really very wrong, instead of being a sinner in a general
way, as, of course, we all must expect to be."
One thing that made me feel strange in Aunt Beauchamp's church is its looking so different from the
church at home. I cannot help liking the great stone
pillars, and the arched roof, and the fretwork of the
high windows, with bits of stained glass still left in
them, better than this new church, with its carpeted
passages, and cushioned galleries, and painted wooden
pillars, and flat ceiling. The music, and even the common speech in response and prayers, seem in some way
mellowed,and made sacred as they echo and wind
among the old arches and up the roof, which seems more
like the sky.
But Cousin Evelyn says my taste would be deemed




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYA..              95
perfectly monstrous-that these old country churches
are remnants of the dark ages, quite Gothic and barbarous, and that in time, it is hoped, they will be
replaced throughout England by buildings in the Greek
and Roman style, or by that classic adaptation of both
which is so elaborately developed in the ornamental
pulpit and sounding-board of the church we attend.
And then Aunt Beauchamp says some of the woodwork is of that costly; new, fashionable wood called
mahogany, so that it admits of no comparison with the
rough attempts of less civilized ages.
I wonder if there are fashiona in architecture as well
as in dress-only counting their dates by centuries
instead of by years. It would be strange if these old
churches should ever be admired again, like the costumes of Queen Elizabeth's time, and these new buildings
be ridiculed as antiquated, like Miss Pawsey's fashions I
I should be glad if this happened! The poor old
Gothic builders seem to have delighted in their work,
and taken such pains about it, as if they were guided by
thoughts about right and wrong in what they did, by
love and duty, instead of just by fashion and taste.
There seems such a heavy weight of emptiness about
the life here. The rigidity of Aunt Henderson's laws
seems to me liberty compared with the endlss drifting
of this life without laws. In the morning the toilette,
with the levee of visitors, the eager discussions about the
colour of head-dresses and the shape of hoops. In the




96                THE DIARY OF
evening a number of beautifully dressed people, paying
elaborate compliments to their present acquaintances, or
elaborately dissecting the characters of their absent
acquaintances-the only groups really in earnest being
apparently those around the card-tables, who not unfrequently fall into something very like quarrelling.
This kind of living by the day surely cannot be the
right kind-this filling up of every day with trifles, from
brim to brim, as if every day were a separate life, and
every trifle a momentous question.
When our Saviour told us to live by the day, He
meant, I think, a day encompassed by Eternity-a day
whose yesterday had gone up to God, to add its little
record to the long unforgotten history of the past, whose
to-morrow may take us up to God ourselves. We are
to live by the day, not as butterflies, which are creatures
of a day, but as mortal yet immortal beings belonging
to Eternity, whose mortal life may end to-night, whose
longest life is but an ephemeral fragment of our immortality.
Evelyn seems very much aloof from the world about
her. In society sometimes she becomes animated, and
flashes brilliant sayings on all sides. But her wit is
mostly satirical; the point is too often in the sting. She
is evidently felt as a power in her circle; and her power
arises in a great measure from her absence of ordinary
vanity. She does not care for the opinion of those
around her; and whilst those around her are in bondage
to one another for a morsel of praise or admiration, she




M.RS. KITTF TRREVYLYAN.           97
sits apart on a tribunal of her own making, and dispenses her judgments.
At present, I believe, she has passed sentence on me
as Pharisaical, because of something I said of the new
oratorio of the Messiah. At first it seemed to me more
heavenly than anything I had ever heard; but when they
came to those words about our Lord's sorrows, " He was
despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief,' and around us there was, not a hush of shame
and penitence, but a little buzz of applause, suppressed
whispers, such as "Charming!"-" What tone!"-" No
one else can sustain that note in such a way!"-and at
the close the audience loudly clapped the singer, and she
responded with a deep theatrical courtesy-I thought of
"When I survey the wondrous cross," wished myself in
Dr. Watts' chapel, and felt I would rather have listened
to any poor nasal droning which was worship, than to
such mockery. I could not help crying.
When we were in the house again, Evelyn said," You enjoyed that music, Kitty."
"No, Cousin Evelyn," I said; "I would rather have
been at the opera, a hundred times, and far rather in
Aunt Henderson's chapel at Hackney."
"Your taste is original, at all events,". she replied
drily.
"To think," I said, "of their setting the great shame
and agony of our Saviour to music for an evening's
entertainment, and applauding it like a play  One
might as well make a play about the death bed of a




98                THE DIARY OF
mother. For it is true, it is true! He did suffer all
that for us."
She looked at me earnestly for a few moments, and
then she said coldly," How do you know, Cousin Kitty, that other people
were not feeling it as much as you? What right have
we to set down every one as profane and heartless just
because the tears do not come at every moment to the
surface. The Bible says,'Judge not, and ye shall not
be judged;' and tells us not to be in such a hurry to take
the motes out of other people's eyes."
I was quite silenced. It is so difficult to think of the
right thing to say at the moment. Afterwards I thought
of a hundred answers, for I did not mean to judge any
one unkindly. I only spoke of my own feelings. But
1Evelyn has retired into her shell, and evades all attempts
to resume the subject.
This morning at breakfast Cousin Harry (of whom
we see very little) spoke, quite as an ordinary occurrence, of a duel, in which some one had been killed, in
consequence of a quarrel about a lady; and of another
little affair of the same kind ending in the flight of a
lady of rank to the Continent.
I asked Evelyn afterwards what it meant.
" Only that some one ran away with some one else's
wife, and the person to whom the wife belonged did not
like it, and so there was a duel, and the husband was
killed."




RfJ?. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             99' But," I said, "that is a dreadful sin. Those are
things spoken of in the Ten Commandments."
"Sin," she replied, " my scriptural cousin, is a word
not in use in polite circles, except on Sundays, as a
quotation from the Prayer-Book. We never introduce
that kind of phraseology on week days."
" Do these terrible things happen often, then?" I asked.
" Not every day," she replied drily. "The next thing
you will be thinking is, that you have lighted on a den
of thieves. A great many people only play with imitations of hearts in ice.  For instance, mamma's little
amusements are as harmless to herself and all concerned
as the innocent gambols of a kitten. The only danger
in that kind of diversion," she added bitterly, "is, that
it sometimes ends in the real heart and the imitation
being scarcely distinguishable from each other."
The easy and polished world around me no longer
seems to me empty and trifling, but terrible. These
icicles of pleasure are, then, only the sparkling crust over
an abyss of passion, and wrong, and sin.
There is excitement and interest enough, certainly, in
watching this drama, if one knows anything of what is
underneath,-the same kind of excitement as in watching
that dreadful rope-dancing Cousin Harry took us to see
at Vauxhall. The people are dancing at the risk of life,
and more than life. The least loss of head or heart, the
least glancing aside of one of these graceful steps, and
the performers fall into depths one shudders to think of.




100              THE DIARY OF
I tremble when I think of it. Dull and hard as the
religion seemed to me at Aunt Henderson's, it is safety
and purity compared with this wretched, cruel levity,
this dancing on the ice, beneath which your neighbours
are sinking and struggling in agony.
Religion is worth something as a safeguard, even when
it has ceased to be life and joy.
The sweet hawthorn which makes the air fiagrant in
spring is still something in winter, although it be only as
a prickly prohibitory hedge.
The trees which were a home of happy singing birds,
and a treasure of shade and refreshment in summer, are
still a shelter even when their leafless branches toss and
crackle in the fierce winds of December. That is, as
long as there is any life in the thorns, or the trees, or the
religion.
If it were death instead of only winter that made the
trees leafless, they would soon cease to be a shelter as
they have before ceased to be a delight.
Yesterday I had a letter brought me by Evelyn's maid,
written on perfumed coloured paper.
In it the writer ventured to call me in poetry a goddess, and a star, and a peerless rose. If there had been
only that, I should have felt nothing but indignation; for
I do believe I have done nothing to deserve such nonsense being said to me.
But at the end there is some prose, in which the writer
says he has really formed a devoted attachment to me,




MIRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN.           10 o 
and he seems to want me to marry him at once, for he
talks of lawyers and settlements. Cousin Evelyn came
in as I was sitting perplexing myself what I ought to do.
She laughed at my distress, and told me she could show
me a drawer full of such compositions.
"It is so trying to have to make any one really unhappy," I said; "and you see he says in the prose that
life will be a blank to him if I cannot give him the
answer he wishes."
"Indeed you need not mind," she said. "I myself
have broken a score of hearts in the same way, and I
assure you no one would know it; they do as well without their hearts.  They are like the poor gentleman
whom Dante discovered, to his surprise, in the Inferno
while he was supposed to be still alive. A devil was
walking about in his body while his soul was in torments; and the devil and the soul were so much alike
that no one had suspected the change."
"I had never anything of the kind to do before," I
said " and I am sorry. The prose really looks as if he
would care, and I want to write gently but very firmly,
I wish I could see Mother." But then I thought how
Mother had always told me of the one Refuge in every
difficulty, and I said softly, hardly knowing I said it
aloud, " But if I pray, God will help me to do what is
right."
" Pray about a love letter!" exclaimed my cousin, look.
ing nearly as much shocked as I had felt at her calling the
church as good as the play.  "Pray about a love letter,
5




102               ^Et DIAR Y OF
Cousin Kitty I You surely would not do anything so
profane."
" Surely I may pray God to help me to do right," I
said, "about everything. Nothing in which there seems
a question of right or wrong can be out of His care."
Evelyn looked at me once more with her wistful, soft
look, and said very gravely,"Kitty, I believe you really do believe in God."
" You do not think that any wonder?" I said.
"I do," she said solemnly. I have been watching you
all this time, and I am sure you really do believe in God;
and I think you love Him. I have never met any one
who did since my old nurse died."
"Never met with any religious person I" I said.
" I did not say that," she replied. "I have met with
plenty of religious persons. Uncle and Aunt Henderson,
and several ladies who almost shed tears over their cards,
while talking of Mr. Whitefield's'heavenly sermon,' at
Lady Huntingdon's-numbers of people who would no
more give balls in Lent than Aunt Henderson would go
to church.  I have met all kinds of people who have
religious seasons, and religious places, and religious dislikes, who would religiously pull their neighbours to
pieces, and thank God they are not as other men.' At
the oratorio I thought you were going to turn out just a
Pharisee like the rest; but I was wrong. Except you
and my old nurse, I never met with any one who believed,
not in religion, but in God'; not now and then, but always. And I wish I were like either of yc.."




MRS. AKITTY mTEVYLTAN.           103
"Oh, Cousin Evelyn," I said, "you must not judge
people so severely. How can we know what is really in
other people's hearts? How can we know what humility and love there are in the hearts of those you call
Pharisees; how they weep in secret over the infirmities
you despise; how much they have to overcome; how,
perhaps, the severity you dislike is only the irritation of
a heart struggling with its own temptations and not quite
succeeding? How do you know that they may not be
praying for you even while you are laughing at them?"
"I do not want them to pray for me," she replied
fiercely. "I know exactly how they would pray. They
would tell God I was in the gall of bitterness and in the
bond of iniquity; they would thank Him for having, by
His distinguishing mercy, made them to differ; and then
they would express a hope that I might be made to see the
error of my ways. I know they would, for I heard two
religious ladies once talking together about me. One
asked if I was a believer; and the other, who had expressed great interest in me and sought my confidence,
said she'was not without hope of me, for I had expressed great disgust at the world. She had even told
Lady Huntingdon she thought I might be won to the
truth. The woman had actually worked herself into my
confidence by pretended sympathy, just to gossip about
me at the religious tea-parties."
I endeavoured to say a word in defence, but she exclaimed, —" Cousin Kitty, if I thought your religion
would make you commit a treachery like that, I would




104              THE DIARY OF
not say a word to you. But you have never tried to
penetrate into my confidence, nor have you betrayed any
one else's. I feel I can trust you. I feel if you say you
care for me you mean it; and you love me as me myself,-not like a doctor, as a kind of interesting religious
case.. Now," she continued in a gentler tone, " I am not
at all happy, and I believe if I loved God as you do I
should be. That may seem to you a very poor reason
for wishing to be good, but it does seem as if God meant
us to be happy; and I have been trying, but I don't get
on. Indeed, I feel as if I got worse. I have tried to
confess my faults to God. I used to think that must be
easy, but the more I try the harder it is. It seems as if
one never could get to the bottom of what one has to
confess.  At the bottom of the faults, censoriousness,
idleness, hastiness, I come to sins, pride, selfishness. It
is not the things only that are wrong, it is I that am
wrong,-I myself,-and what can alter me?     I may
change my words or my actions, but who is to change me?
Sometimes I feel a longing to fall into a long sleep and
wake up somebody else, quite new."
It occurred to me that the thought of conversion, which
to Cousin Tom had, in the wrong place, become like a
barrier between him and God, would to Evelyn be the
very thing she longed for. And I said, "'Except ye be
converted, and become as little children, ye cannot enter
the kingdom of heaven.' It is we that must be converted,
changed, and not merely, as you say, our actions-turned
quite round from sin and darkness to God and light."




iMRS. KITTY TTEVYLYA.             1o0
She caught at the words " as little children." She said,
"Cousin Kitty, that is just the thing I should like-that
would be like waking up quite new. But how can
that be?"
"It seems to me,"  said, "that it must be like the
blind man, who, believing our Lord's words, and looking
up to Him sightless, saw. Looking to Him must be turning to Him, and turning to Him must be conversion."
Then we agreed that we both had much to learn, and
that we would read the Bible together.
Since then we have read the Bible very often together,
Evelyn and I. But her anxiety and uneasiness seem to
increase. She says the Bible is so full of God, not only
as a King whose audience must be attended on Sundays,
or a Judge at a distance recording our sins to weigh
them at the last day, but as a Father near us always,
having a right to our tenderest love as well as our deepest reverence.
" And I," she says, " am far from loving Him besthave scarcely all my life done anything, or given up anything, to please Him."
I comforted her as well as I could. I told her she
must not think so much of her loving God as of His loving
her,-loving us on through all our ingratitude and foolishness. We read together of the Cross-of Him who
bore our sins there in His own body, and bore them away.
I cannot but think this is the true balm for my cousin's
distress.; it always restores ar d cheers me-and yet she
is not comforted.




io6              THE DIARY OF
It solms to me sometimes as if while I were trying to
pour in consolation, a mightier hand than mine gently
put aside the balm, and made the very gracious words I
repeated a knife to probe deeper and deeper into the
wound.
And then I can only wait, and wonder, and pray. It
does seem as if God were working in her heart. She is
so much gentler, and more subdued. And the Bible says
not only joy and peace, but gentleness, is a fruit of the
Holy Spirit.
I often wish Evelyn were only as free as the old woman
who sells oranges at Aunt Beauchamp's door, or the little
boy who sweeps the crossings; for they may go where
they like and hear the Methodist preachers in Moorfields
or in the Foundery Chapel. And I feel as if Mr. Wesley
or Mr. Whitefield could help my cousin as I cannot. If
she could only hear those mighty, melting words of conviction and consolation I saw bringing tears down the
colliers' faces, or holding the crowd at Moorfields in
awe-stricken, breathless attention!
My wish is accomplished. We are to go and hear Mr.
Whitefield speak at Lady Huntingdon's house in Park
Street. It came about in this way:A lady who is reported to have lately become very
religious called one morning, and after some general conversation began to speak of Mr. Whitefield's addresses
in Lady IIuntingdon's house. She strongly urged my
aunt and cousin to go, saying, by way of inducement, that




MlARS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.           o07
it was quite a select assembly-no people one would not
like to meet were invited, or, at all events, if such people
came, one was in no way mixed up with them. "And
he is such a wonderful orator," she said; "no commonplace fanatic, I assure you, Evelyn. His discourses are
quite such as you would admire, quite suited to people of
the highest intellectual powers. My Lord Bolingbroke
was quite fascinated, and my Lord Chesterfield himself
said to Mr. Whitefield (in his elegant way),' He would
not say to him what he would say to every one else, how
much he approved him.'"
"I did not know that Lord Chesterfield and Lord
Bolingbroke were considered good judges of a sermon,"
said Evelyn drily.
"Of the doctrine-well, that's another thing," said the
religious lady; "but of the oratory and the taste. Garrick, the great actor, says that his tones have such power
that he can make his hearers weep and tremble merely
by varying his pronunciation of the word Mesopotamia;
and many clever men, not at all religious, say they would
as soon hear him as the best play."
"I have heard many services which seemed to me like
plays," said Evelyn, very mischievously; "and I do not
see that it can do any one's soul any good to be made to
weep at the word Mesopotamia."
" Oh, if we speak of doing real good to the soul," rejoined the visitor,-" that is what I mean;" and in a tone
of real earnest feeling she added, " I never heard any one
speak of the soul, and of Christ, and of salvation like Mr.




1o8               THE DIARY OF
Whitefield. While he is preaching I can never think of
anything but the great things he is speaking of. It is
only afterwards one remembers his oratory and his voice."
And it was agreed that we should go to Lady Huntingdon's house the next time Mr. Whitefield was to preach.
" How strange it is," Evelyn said to me when the lady
had left, "what things religious people think will influence us who are still'in the world!' What inducement
would it be to me to go and hear a preacher, if Lord
Bolingbroke and Lord Chesterfield, or all the clever and
sceptical and dissipated noblemen in England liked him,
and were no better for it? They try to tempt us to hear
what is good, by saying the congregation is fashionable,
or that clever people are captivated, or that the preacher
is a genius, or an orator, or a man of the world, when I
do think the most worldly people care more for the religion in a sermon than for anything else, and would be
more attracted if they would say,' We want you to hear
that preacher, because he speaks of sin, and of Christ,
and of the forgiveness of sins in a way no one else does.'
I wonder," she concluded, after a pause, with a little
smile, "if I ever should become really religious, if I shall
do the same; if I shall one day be saying to Harry,'You
must hear this or that preacher; for he is a better judge
of a horse than any jockey you know. "
We have heard Mr. Whitefield.
And what can I remember?
Just a man striving with his whole heart and soul to




MRSS. KITTY TREVYL YA             109o
win lost souls out of a perishing, sorrowful world to
Christ, and holiness, and joy.
Just the conviction poured in on the heart by an overwhelming tcrrent of pleading, warning, tender, fervent
eloquence, that Christ Jesus the Lord cares more infinitely to win and save lost wandering souls than man
himself-that where the preacher weeps and entreats, the
Saviour died and saved.
Yes, it is done. The work of salvation is done. "It
is finished."
I never understood that in the same way before.
It is not only that the Lord Jesus loves us, yearns over
us, entreats us not to perish. He has saved us. He has
actually taken our sins and blotted them out, washed
them out of sight, white, whiter than snow, in His own
blood.
It is not only that He pities. He saves. He has died.
He has redeemed. The hands stretched out to save are
those that paid the terrible ransom. He did not begin
to pity us when we began to turn to Him. " When we
were without strength, He died for us, ungodly."
" God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself,
not imputing their trespasses unto them."
"For He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no
sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in
Him."
I never understood this in this way before; and yet
there it is, and always has been, as clear as daylight, in
page after page of the Bible.




110              THE DIARY OF
All the way home Evelyn said nothing. Aunt Beauchamp was the only one who spoke; and she said it was
very affecting certainly; but she did not see there was
anything so very original. It was all in the Prayer-Book
and in the Bible.
And then, after a pause, she added, in rather a selfcontradictory way, " But if we are to be what Mr. Whitefield would have us, we might as well all go into convents
at once. He really speaks as if people were to do noth.
ing but be religious. He forgets that some of us have
other duties."
Then she took refuge in her vinaigrette, and said in a
very languid voice, " My darling Evelyn you look quite
pale. Much more excitement of this kind would make
us both quite ill. The man is so terribly vehement, he
makes one feel as if one were in peril of life and death.
Such preaching may do for people without nerves, but it
would soon kill me. I am only too glad I escaped without an attack of hysterics. And," she continued, "I
was told that a few days since Lady Suffolk was there by
invitation. I really wonder a person of Lady Huntingdon's character should invite such people to her house.
My dear," concluded my aunt, " I do not think the thing
is respectable, and I wonder Lady Mary proposed our
attending such an assembly. Indeed, I wonder at myself
for consenting to go. It is not at all a kind of place for
sound church people to be seen at. I would not have
the archdeacon know it on any account; for I am sure
Dr. Humden would think I had been out of my senses.,




MRS. KITTY TRFEVYLYAN.            i 1
And soothed with so many restoratives, ecclesiastical,
social, and medical, Aunt Beauchamp relapsed into her
usual state of languor and self-contentment.
But Evelyn said nothing. Only when I ventured some
hlours afterwards to knock at her bed-room door, she
opened and closed it in silence, and then taking both
my hands, said, in a soft, trembling voice, " Cousin Kitty,
I am very full of sin! I really think I am worse than any
one, because, being myself so wrong, I have so despised
every one around me. I have been a Pharisee and a
publican all in one."
And then she burst into tears, and buried her face in
her hands. But in a few minutes she looked up again
with a face beaming with a soft, child-like, lowly peace,
and she said, " But Cousin Kitty, I am happier than I
ever thought any one could be. For I do believe our
Lord Jesus Christ died for my sins, and has really washed
them away. And I do feel sure God loves me, even me;
and I think He really will by degrees m   make me good-I
mean humble, and loving, and kind. I do feel so at home,
Cousin Kitty," she added. "I feel as I had come back
to the very heart of my Father-and oh, He loves me so
tenderly, so infinitely, and has been loving me so long.
Yes, at home, and at rest," she sobbed; "at home everywhere, and for ever, andfor ever."
The next morning Evelyn came to me early, pale, but
with a great calm on her frank, expressive face. " Kitty,"
she said, "I have had a strange night.  I could not
sleep at all. It seemed as if the sins of a]l my past life




112              THE DIARY OF
came up before me unbidden, as they say the whole past
sometimes comes vividly back to a drowning man. I
saw the good I had left undone, the evil I had said and
done, and the pride and selfishness at the bottom of all.
And almost more than anything, I felt how unkind, and
even unjust I had been to mamma; how ungenerous in
not veiling many of her little infirmities; for I know
she loves papa and Harry and me really better than all
else in the world. I felt I must come with the first light
and confess this to you. For one night came back to
me Kitty, years and years ago, when I was a little child.
Harry and I had the scarlet fever, and I saw before me,
as if it were yesterday, my mother's pale tender face,
as she moved from one little bed to the other. I remember thinking how beautiful and dear she was as she sat
by the nursery fire, and the flickering light fell on her
face and her dark hair, and how she started at any
movement or moan I or Harry made, and came so softly
to the bedside, and bent over me with such anxious love
in her eyes, and said tender little soothing words, and
smoothed the pillow, or kissed my forehead with the soft
kiss which was better than any cooling draught. Since
then, indeed, we have been much away frbm her, and left
to governesses and tutors; but Kitty, think what a blessing it is to recall all that early affection now, instead of
by-and-by, when it would be too late to say a loving word
or to do a thing to please her in return I Now I can
bear to think of this, and of all my coldness and impatience, with the thought of the Cross and of God's for



MRS. KITTY TREVYLYANl              113
giving love, and with the hope of the days to come. But
only think what it would have been to have seen it all too
late."
It seems as if, in coming back to God, Evelyn had come
back to all that is tender and true in natural human love.
I suppose this is conversion. The joy of such a waking must be very great. But it is joy enough to be awake,
however little we know when and how we awoke-awake
in the light of our Heavenly Father's love to do the day's
work He gives us.
To-day she smiled and said to me," I think I should not mind now their talking over my
case at Lady Betty's tea-parties. I had rather not, but
if there was kindness at the bottom of it, I need not
mind much. But Kitty," she continued, "I do think still
it is not possible to talk truly and much of our deepest
feelings of any kind. I think it is a waste of power which
we want for action."
" We certainly need never sit down to talk of our own
feelings," I said. " There are moments when they will
come out. And there is so much in the Bible to spdak
of without talking about ourselves."
"Yes," she said; "I think setting ourselves to talk
religion is weakening. Think of Harry and me having
a meeting to discuss which of us loved our parents best,
or whether we loved them better yesterday or to-day 1
Yet there are sacred times w ~en we must speak of those
we love."




I14              THE DIARY OF
Aunt Beauchamp is rather puzzled at the change in
Evelyn. Evelyn has tried to explain it to her. But she
says she cannot at all understand it. "Every one believed in Christianity except a few sceptics like Lord
Bolingbroke. Of course, the work of our redemption
was'finished.' It was finished more than seventeen hundred years since. Mr. Humden preached about it, always,
at least, on Good Friday. And why Evelyn should be
so particularly anxious about having her sins forgiven,
she could not conceive; she had always been charming,
if at times a little espiegle. But if she was happy no one
could object."
There is nothing striking in this change in Evelyn,
but it is pervading-a gentleness in all she says and
does; which, with the natural truthfulness and power of
her character, are very winning. And this I notice especially with regard to her mother, a deference and tenderness, which with no peculiar demonstration of affection,
evidently touch Aunt Beauchamp more than she knows.
She begins even to venture to consult Evelyn about her
wardrobe.
Evelyn does not ask to go again to hear Mr. Whitefield. But she has asked to go with me to see my poor
old Methodist orange woman, who has disappeared from
our door-steps, and now lies contentedly on her poor
bed, coughing and suffering, waiting the Lord's time,
which, she says, is sure to be exactly right. The dear
old soul gets us to read to her chapters from her old
Bible, and hymns fronm Mi Wcley's new hymn-book;




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             115
and repeats to us bits from Mr. Wesley's sermons. And
perhaps, although sometimes the grammar is very confused and the theology not very clear, the strength of
God made perfect in the weakness of a dying-bed may
help us both as much as the mighty power of Mr. Whitefield's eloquence.
To-d^y Hugh Spencer called on his way from Corn
wall to Oxford.
At first he called me Mrs. Kitty, and was very ceremonious. But I could scarcely help crying, I was so
glad. It was like a little bit of home. But he did not
bring a very good account of Mother, and that made me
cry in earnest. And when he saw that he dropped
naturally into his old manner-always so kind, and like
truth itself.
When he was gone, Evelyn asked me who he was, and
why I had not said more about him.
" He looks," she said, "a man one could trust."
But why should I? He is only like one of ourselves.
I am so glad and thankful. Aunt Beauchamp is going
again to Bath for the waters. And from Bath, father
or Jack is to fetch me home.
I am so happy, I can scarcely help singing all day. I
hope it is not ungrateful. They have all been so very
kind to me in London.
And even Aunt Beauchamp's very dignified maid, of
whom at first I s'ood in such awe, seemed quite sorry




1 6              THE DIARY OF
when she heard I was going, and fell from the highest
refinement of English into her native Devonshire dialect,
when she took leave of me, to go and prepare the house
at Bath, and wished me every blessing with tears in
her eyes.
Yet I have done nothing for her, except being very
sorry for her, and trying to comfort her one day when
she was crying because her only brother had got drunk,
and gone and taken the King's money and listed for the
wars, and left her widowed mother alone.
To-day Evelyn went with me to wish good-bye to
Aunt Henderson. Aunt Henderson was very kind in
her hortatory way. She told me she had heard with
thankfulness that Evelyn had become serious. But she
advised her not to run into extremes. Young people
brought out of the world were very apt to run into the
other extreme of fanaticism. She hoped Evelyn, if she
was indeed sincere, would keep the golden mein. It
had always been her endeavour to do so, and she had
found it the wisest plan.
Cousin Tom was more shy and awkward than ever.
He said, when I asked him, that he had attended Mr.
Wesley's preaching two or three times, but it was like
daggers to him. For as to telling everything to his
father and mother, he did not see how any human being
could. To sit evening after evening at home a distrusted
delinquent, the subject of indirect lectures, was more
than he could bear. If he confessed, he must run away
the next morning




MIRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN.           117
I told him I was sure he had no idea of the true love
tLere was in his mother's heart-if he would only try it.
"Very little more idea, Tom," I said, "than you have
of the love God has for you-if you would only try that!"
A gleam of light flashed for a moment from under the
shaggy eyebrows, and he glanced up at me. But then
the old desponding downcast look came back. Aunt
Henderson and Evelyn joined us, and he said no more.
Aunt Jeanie seemed to me feebler than when I saw
her last; but her dear old face lighted up as she talked
to us.
And as we were going away, she rose and held our
hands in each of hers, and said, in a tender, trembling
voice,"The world is no easy place for bairns like you to
find their way through. And there's no safe road through
it that I know, from first to last, but just the foot-prints
of the Lord himself. But you must not look to see even
these in any long track before you. You'll mostly find
nothing plain but the next step. But your hearts need
not sink for that. A Saviour's hand to guide you is
better than a map. It upholds while it guides. I have
found that the times when I was longing for the map
were just those when I was losing hold of the hand;
and then more than once the thorns, piercing my feet,
drove me back to the foot-prints and the hand I should
never have forsaken. But you need not be afraid even
of the thorns," she added, her whole face lighting up with




118                THE DIARY.
confidence and joy; " the feet in whose prints we tread
were pierced for us with worse than thorns. And the
hand that guides and upholds is a hand well able to bind
up any wounds. It has bound up what none else could
-the broken heart."
Then, as once or twice before, she seemed to forget
the thought of our presence in the presence of God.
Her whole spirit seemed to rise in prayer.
Evelyn and I said little as we went home together.
But it was not because our hearts were closed to each
other. They seemed not only too full, but too near to
need the intervention of words.




IV.
T home again! With what longing I have
looked forward to the moment when I should
be able to write those words. And now I
can scarcely see to write them through my tears.
For Mother looks so ill, so terribly gentle; her step,
always light, so noiseless; her voice, always soft, so low
and sweet; her smile so tender, not like the dawn or
the echo of happy laughter, but like the light struggling
through tears.
Can these few months have made such a change, or
have I been blind? Father does not seem to see it, nor
Jack. Can it be, after all, only that, coming out of the
glare of that brilliant London world, everything in our
quiet world at home looks pale for the time?
Because the house, and the furniture, and all look so
different. I never saw before how the bit of carpet in
the parlour is worn -and colourless; nor how the chintz
curtains are patched; nor how Mother's Sunday dress
itself is faded.
And these cannot have changed much in a few months.
(119)




120              THE IDIARY OF
Indeed, as it is, I should not have noticed the furniture half as much it we had met as usual in the hall,
around our ordinary vable, to our ordinary fare. But
Betty was determined to make it a high-day; and
accordingly the meal was spread in the parlour, and the
best Delft ware was brought out, as if I had been a
stranger of distinction; and, after all, it seemed a posi
tive wrong to notice the darns in the table-cloth, bleached
to such a dazzling whiteness, and the crack in the best
glass sugar-basin, monument of an ancient battle between
Betty and Jack.
Yes, it was this holiday pitch to which Betty had
insisted on winding everything up, which just brought
me from the laughing point to the crying, which is so
near it. It was the tender anxiety in Mother's eyes that
I should find everything especially pleasant and bright,
that so nearly turned the smile in mine own into tears
whenever I looked at her. It was Betty's ostentatious
exhibition of all her grandest things that gave me the
little pang when Father took off his best coat, which he
had put on to welcome me, and Mother took it from him,
and folded it so carefully in its white covers, and laid it
on its shelf in the cupboard.
Por it is no grievance to have to take care of one's
clothes; I am sure none of us feel it so. And I would
not, if I could, have our dear old furniture sink into the
mere decorative ciphers such things are in rich men's
houses, instead of being the dear familiar old letters on
which so much of the history of our lives is written.




MRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN.            121
No; it was just the strain to be at high-holiday pitch
which was too muzh for the carpet, and the table-cloth,
and our precious Mother, and me.
For when at last Father gave a little shivering glance
at the parlour grate, with its very fine decorations, which
Betty would on no account sacrifice to such low considerations as warmth and comfort, and Trusty, with his
paws on the sacred threshold which he dared not cross,
whined. an insinuating remonstrance against our exclusiveness, and our stateliness at last broke down, and
Jack set a light to the fire in the great hall, and we five
drew close to it, and the great festival was over, and we
began to be really at home,-it could not have been
only the glow from the blazing logs,-Mother certainly
did look less pale, and more like her old self, as Trusty
and I sat together at her feet, she stroking my hair, and
I stroking Trusty's ears.
Yet we did not remain long so; Father fell asleep,
and waking suddenly asked Jack if he had seen to the
horses. The one I had ridden had been lent us, and had
a cough, and must have a warm mash.
Jack had not seen to anything. Father drily supposed not-how could any one expect it?
Jack yawned in a deprecatory way, and went out; and
Father did not fall asleep again, but followed Jack in a
few minutes, muttering that borrowed beasts at least
must not be left to chance.
The troubled look came into Mother's face again.
Trusty evidently felt she needed consolation, and after




122              THE DIARY OF
following Father to the door, paused a moment, then
came back and put his paws on her knee, and attempted
to lick her hand. And I felt just as dumb and perplexed
as the dog, and could do little more than he in the way
of comfort. I could only draw Mother's hand round my
neck, and press a little closer to her, and cover it with
silent kisses.
After all, we are all " dumb creatures" after a certain
point. Only, dogs reach their dumb point a little sooner
than we do.
And this has been going on all the time I have been
away I  While I have been living without care or
anxiety; while Aunt Henderson has been pursuing her
grave routine of household occupations, having the washing done on Monday, the ironing on Tuesday, the best
parlour cleaned on Wednesday, the back parlour on
Thursday, the hall and garden-room on Friday, and
things in general on Saturday; while Aunt Beauchamp
has been amusing herself with her complimentary old
gentlemen in the mornings, and exciting herself over her
cards every evening; care, care, care, keen pangs of
fear, and slow gnawings of anxiety have been steadily,
surely, eating away at Mother's heart; and no one has
seen it but Trusty  Poor, faithful, perplexed old dog,
he has seen it-he told me so with his wistful eyes this
evening, and by his low whine when Jack went out, not
closing the door, and Father followed him, decisively
slamming it. And I have not been here. But nothing
on earth shall ever move me from Mother's side again.




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYA4.            123
The Same Evening.
AFTER writing these words my heart was too full
for any more, and I closed the Diary, and prepared to go to sleep, lest Miother should see my candle
burning too late, and be anxious about me. But it was
too late already. The soft touch was on the latch of
the door, and before I could possibly extinguish the
light and hide my tears in the darkness, Mother was
beside me.
"My darling " she said, a rare word for her, "you
are over-tired. You are not well. You should be in
bed before this. We must come back to our homely old
country ways."
"Indeed I am not tired, Mother," I said, trying to
speak steadily.
" Has anything troubled you, darling," she said," while
you were away?"
"Oh, no," I said; "every one has spoiled me with
kindness."
"Spoiled you for the old home, Kitty?" she murmured.
She had given me a right to cry, and I sobbed out,
" Oh, Mother, it is nothing but you; you are so pale, and
things have been troubling you, and there has been no
one to see it."
She was too truthful to comfort me with a deception.
She only smiled and said, "Does no one see but you,
Kitty? Well, supposing I say I have missed you day
and night, and never knew what you were to me till you




124              THE DIARY OF
went away, will that comfort you, Kitty? Shall we cry
because it is all right again?"
"I will never leave you again, Mother, as long as I
live," I said passionately.
"As long as we both live, darling," she replied very
quietly. "If it is God's will, and not very selfish in me,
I do trust not."
I was calmed by her words.
It was only after she had seen me safely in bed, and
closed the door, and come back again to give me another
kiss before she left me, that her words came back on me
with another meaning.
" As long as we botk live."
And then they echoed through and through my heart,
like a passing bell through a vault. And I tossed to
and fro, and could not sleep, until I remembered I had
not said my prayers.
The first night of my coming home! the thing I had
prayed for evening and morning, and often in the day,
ever since I had left home, and I had gone to rest without a word of thanks to God!
I was appalled at my own ingratitude. I rose and
knelt by the window in the moonlight, which quivered
through the branches of the old elms, and shimmered on
the leaves of the old thorn, and chequered the floor
through the diamond lattice panes.
It was that I wanted-only that-prayer with thanks-.giving. It did me good from the moment I began.
And what wonder? Prayer is no soliloquy. The




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAMY.             12l
Bible says, when we call on Him, God bends down His
ear to listen, as a father bends down to listen to a little
child. Yes, God listens! He heard me as I confessed
my ingratitude and my distrustful fears. He heard me
as I gave Him thanks; He heard me as I committed
Mother to His care.
Ungrateful I God had been watching Mother all the
time, understanding her inmost cares, and caring for her.
And He will care for us, " as long as we both live."
Yes, when I breathed even those words into His ear, the
terrible death-chill seemed to pass from them.
"As long as we both live" here on earth, and, then,
when we have no more cares to cast on Him, He will still
care for us both for ever and for ever.
Marginal Note.-I was unjust, too, to say no one had
seen how dear Mother was looking: for Hugh Spencer
told me she was looking ill when I saw him in Great
Ormond Street.
I am feeling much better to-day than yesterday.
In the first place Mother is looking better.
In the second place, I have had my morning walk once
more, and milked the cows, and taken the cup of new
milk to Mother before breakfast. And the mere sight
and sound of the sea made my heart buoyant again like
its own waves; the great and wide sea, heaving its innumerable waves from its deep, still heart; the wind
crisping them into foam, till they looked like a flight of
snowy sea-birds; the old familiar thunder of the break
6




126              l'HE DAIY OF
ers against the roc:ks; the long roll of the ebbing wave,
as it swept the pebbles back from the vhite beach far
below. Then the turf was crisp with hoar-frost; and
the wind on the cliff blew me about with a rough heartiness; and when I sat on the milking-stool in the shelter
of the hollow, Daisy looked round at me with her large,
motherly eyes, and in her calm, friendly way, recognized
my right to be there. So all the dumb creatures welcomed me home again.
And in the third place, I have had a battle with Betty,
which is her welcome and recognition that I have once
more taken my old standing.
I had just taken the new milk to Mother, and to my
grief and surprise had not found her in her own little
closet over the porch; she had not yet risen.
"I find it strengthens me more to take the milk before
I rise, Kitty," she said, making light of it. "I did not
think you would have been stirring so early after your
journey. It is cold sometimes in the mornings now," she
added, apologizing to my rueful looks; "but when the
spring comes, we shall have our morning talks in the
porch-room again."
I tried to make as light of the change as Mother did,
to her; but when I left her, I could not resist the longing to pour out my trouble on some one. Father was in
the fields, Jack was in bed. Betty was the only human
creature in the house; and I had no resource but to invade the sanctuary of the dairy where she was making
the butter.




MRS. KITTY T.REVYLYAN.            127
The windows were open; the low sunbeams slanted
through the thick leaves close outside, flickering on the
clean, cool, grey slabs of slate; the fresh morning air
came in, rippling the milk in the pans from which the
thick cream had been skimmed, while the one that was
left with its unbroken crust of thick yellow cream, recalled countless childish feastings. Altogether it was a delicious atmosphere of coolness, and greenness, and cream,
and memories of childhood; and I felt just as much a
child beside Betty, as when Jack and I stood there, humble petitioners to her bounty as Queen of the Dairy, and
Dispenser of all that was Delicious, scarcely tall enough
to see over the brims of those wonderful pans of delight.
Betty was facing the window, lovingly patting her butter into shape, and humming to herself a low winding
song, with as little beginning or end as the murmur of a
brook. She did not hear me until I stood before her,
and exclaimed," Oh, Betty, why did no one tell me? Has no one
seen how ill Mother is?"
It was an indiscreet beginning. Betty looked on it as
an assault. For a minute she said nothing, then still continuing apparently absorbed in her butter, she replied
drily," Some folks thi:k no one sees anything except they
tell it to the town-crier. Some folks, specially young
folks, think no one sees anything but themselves."
" Oi, you know what I mean, Betty!" I said.  "How




I2&              TIHE DIARY OF
long has Mother not been able to get up to have her
milk? And why did no one write me?"
" Why no one wrote I can't say, Mrs. Kitty," she replied. " Why I didn't write, is as plain as why the dog
doesn't speak. Not that that is so very plain neither,
leastways as regards Trusty, for he sees more than a
sight of us that can."
And she continued dexterously and elaborately shaping her butter into the well-remembered dainty little
rolls, as if the precise curve of the rolls were of supreme
importance, and the question under discussion of none.
My disadvantages in the contest were great; a woman
with her fingers occupied has always such a high vantage-ground in a debate, over one that is idle. The matter in debate can always be treated in a placid parenthetical way, as quite subordinate to the matter in hand.
Besides, Betty was in the very heart of her dominions,
and I was an invader.
My only chance was to get her to perceive that I was
no combatant at all, but only a suppliant, when, after
guarding herself with an admonition, I knew her faithful womanly heart would open all its stores of affection
and pity at once.
The tears which nearly choked my voice came to my
aid, as I said,"Betty, I know you love her almost as I do, and you
always see as quickly as any one. Is Mother ill? and
can anything be done?"
Then Betty, having laid the last finished roll on its




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.            129
white dih, began to wipe her hands in the runner that
hung behind the door, and said,"I tell you what it is, Mrs. Kitty, I believe we make a
heathen idol of Missis, and the Lord won't have it." And
the runner was suspiciously drawn over Betty's face.
"Make Mother a heathen, Betty I" I said. "What
do you mean?"
"I mean this, Mrs. Kitty," she said: "I have heard
that parson that the other parsons can't abide, and who
turned my brother-in-law into a lamb; and he said we
are all born idolaters, no better than the heathen, unless
we love God. And then he went on to say what were
our idols. At first I thought he was going to let us all
off easy. For he spoke of the rich man worshipping his
riches, and I thought of the old miser at Falmouth, who
counts out his money every night; and then he spoke of
the great man worshipping his acres, and I thought there
was a hit at our squire, who wouldn't let'Master have that
bit of a field that runs into ours, and would have made
such a winter pasture for our Daisy; and then he spoke
of the foolish young hussys making an idol of their ribbons, and I looked round on a many such that were there,
to see how they liked that. And then he told of husbands and wives making idols of each other, and mothers
of their children, and then I thought of all of you, Mrs.
Kitty, and wished that Master and you and Missis had
been there to hear; and so I do sure, it would have done
you all a sight of good. There's Master makes an open




130               THE DIARY OF
idol of you, my dear; and Missis is just as bad, only she
does it in secret like; and you think no one fit to touch
Missis or look after her but yourself."
Having thus delivered her conscience of her sermon.
Betty had made an outlet for her sympathy; and sitting
down on a bench, and wiping her face with her apron,
she resumed in a gentle husky tone," Not that I think you need worrit yourself so much
about Missis. In my belief, it's you, Mrs. Kitty, my dear,
that she has been pining for; and now she's got you again,
the life will come back again, like a fish thrown back
into the water; leastways if you don't go making an
idol of her, and, with your tears and your woeful looks
watching every turn of her face, love her right away
from us altogether into heaven, which at any time, in
my belief, it would take little to do with Missis. For
that she is fit for to go nobody can deny. But as to her
not getting up so early," she continued, " that's something
to be thankful for, my dear. It was me that brought
her over to that, and I hope no one will over-persuade
her out of it. Some folks seem to think it improves a
weak rope to stretch it as far as it will strain. In my
belief, it's more like to snap it."
Betty's view of Mother's health comforted me much.
It seemed to bring the matter from the region of vague,
immeasurable, helpless fears, into that of actual but remediable cares, which a little cheerful. tender nursing might
soon relieve. I felt anxious to know more of Betty's
experience with the Methodists, and I said,



IRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             131
"Then the parson, after all, said nothing which particularly suited you, Betty?"
"Suited! no, Mrs. Kitty, he did not surely; as little
as a rod suits a fool's back. And a fool I was to go,
when Missis warned me not."
" You did not like what he said, then?"
"I should think not," she replied. "I should like to
know who would like to be stuck up in the stocks before
the whole parish, and pelted with dirt and stones, not in
a promiscuous way like, but just exactly where it hurts
most!"
" How was it, Betty?" I ventured to ask.
To my great amazement, Betty's voice suddenly failed,
and she began to cry. Never before had I seen her show
any sign of feeling, beyond a transient huskiness of
voice, or a suspicious brushing of her hand over her eyes.
She was wont to be as much ashamed of tears as a schoolboy. But now her tears became sobs, and it was some
little time before she could speak.
" Mrs. Kitty," she said, " it was just as I was thinking
who he'd hit next, and smiling to myself to see the poor
tools sobbing and fainting around me, when down came
the word like an arrow right into the core of my heart;
and there I had to stand writhing, like a fish on a hook,
while the parson drove it in; and he as quiet all the time
as if he'd been fixing a nail in the right spot to a hair'sbreadth, in a piece of wood that mustn't be split. I could
have knocked him down, Mrs. Kitty; but there I stood.
fixed and helpless as a worm with a pin through it."




132              THE DIARY OF
"But what did he say, Betty?"
" Mrs. Kitty," she said, "he made me feel I was no
better than a natural-born heathen, and that the idols I
had been worshipping, instead of God, were things an
Indian savage would have been ashamed of."
" What were they then, Betty."
" Why, just my dairy, and my kitchen, and myself," she
said; the very pats of butter which must be better than
any in the country, and the stone floor I've been as
angered to see a foot-mark on, as if it had been the King's
foot-stool."
" The parson did not speak about pats of butter and
kitchen floors?" I said.
"Not in so many words," she replied; "but I knew
well enough what he meant, and so did he; the passions
I've been in with Master Jack and you about your tricks,
and with old Roger about his dirty shoes, and all."
"But, Betty," I interposed, "Jack and I and Roger
were provoking and wrong often; and the kitchen and
the dairy were the work God had given you to do, and
you ought to care about them."
" What's the use of struggling, Mrs. Kitty?" Betty
replied, hopelessly shaking her head. "I am not going
to defend Roger. If I were a saint, I'd not say Roger's
not often as bad as a born fool, and that things don't
often happen aggravating. Haven't I gone over things
times without number, and made out everything as clear
as if I'd been a lawyer at the assizes —that I'd a right to
be in a rage. and a right to care far the work the A1



MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.            133
mighty gave me to do? But it's no use; the wound is
there and the word is there, working and rankling away
in it like a rusty nail. I'm a poor, sinful woman, Mrs.
Kitty, and that's the end of it, and I see no way out
of it."
"But, Betty," I said, " did you not go again, and try
to get comfort?"
"I did indeed, although I had little hope of getting
comfort," she said. " All the time he was speaking, he
looked at me through and through like, but I never
flinched: I looked at him back again; and I set my face,
and said in my heart,'You've caught me now, but
I'll never let you try your hand on me again.' But
when he had stopped and I had got away, it seemed as
if something were always drawing and drawing me back,
like a moth to a candle. So at last I went again. A
lot of folks from the mines and the fishings were met on
the side of the moor, and a man preached to them from
the top of a hedge. But this time it was not the parson,
Mr. Wesley; it was a chap from Yorkshire-a stout,
tall fellow, strong enough to throw any wrestler in Cornwall. At first I thought he was speaking a foreign
tongue; but when I made him out, I found he was worse
than the other. The parson drove that one nail home
into your heart, and kept it there in one spot, struggle
as you might; but the Yorkshire man knocked and
pounded you about until there was no sound place left
in you from top to toe. He made me feel I had been
doing, and speaking, and thinking, and feeling wrong




134              THE DIARY OF
every day of my life, and was to this day. And that
was all the comfort I got for not minding Missis."
" But, Betty," I said, " there is comfort, there is balm
for such wounds; that was not all these Methodists said?"
" No," she replied mournfully, " folks say they spoke
wonderful gracious words about our Saviour and His
death and His pity. But all I know is, it all turned to
gall for me. They say sugar turns to vinegar when folks'
insides are wrong; and I suppose the sweetest words
man or angel ever spoke would be sour to me, as long
as my heart is all wrong. Why, the very thing that
makes me worse than the Indian savages, is the Lord's
pity and what he went through for me, for they never
heard of it, and I have."
"But, Betty," I said, "there is prayer I You can
pray."
"I always thought I could, Mrs. Kitty," she said,
" until I came to try. I've always said the Lord's Prayer
every night, and the Belief and the Commandments on
Sundays. But when I came to want something and ask
for it, it seemed as if I could not pray at all; pray, of
course, I might, but it seems as if there were no one
there to mind."
" Betty," I said, " I think you really do Know our Lord's
pity and grace as little as the Indians. You speak as if
you were all alone in your troubles, when all your troubles are only the rod and staff of God bringing you
home."
"Maybe, Mrs. Kitty " she said: "but I can't see it. I




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAL.           135
only feel the smart and the bruises, and they worrit me
to that degree I can barely abide Roger, or Master Jack,
or you, or Missis, or anybody. I even struck at old
Trusty the other day with the mop-poor, harmless,
dumb brute-as if it was his fault. But he knew I
meant no harm, and came crouching to lick my hand the
next moment."
" Oh, Betty," I said, " the poor beasts understand us
better than we understand God! They trust us."
"And well they may, Mrs. Kitty," said Betty, "for
they never did any sin. The cat'11 steal the milk if she
gets a chance, poor fool, and the dog cannot be trusted
with a bone at all times, I'll not say he can. But the
Almighty made them so, and it's us that puts them out
with our laws about mine and thine, which they don't
understand. It's their nature. But the Almighty never
made us to bury our souls in pats of butter and pans of
milk, and forget Him, and fly into rages about a bit of
dirt on a kitchen floor. And until that can be set right,
I don't see that anything is right, or that I can think
with any comfort of the Almighty."
"But our Saviour came to set all that right, Betty," I said.
"He came to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."
" Maybe, sure," said Betty, " but I know it's not at all
set right for me."
She rose, and once more wiping the tears from her
face, she went into the kitchen to set the rashers on the
fiying pan for breakfast.
But before she drowned her voice in the hissing of




136              THE DIARY OF
the bacon, she turned and said to me with unusual gentleness:" You mean it very kind, Mrs. Kitty; but I don't know
why I should pour out my troubles on you. It's not to be
expected a young maid like you should understand. But
you meant it very kind, my dear; only don't say a word
to worrit Missis, and don't yo: lose heart about Missis
yourself, for she'll get round in time, sure, now she's
got you again; if you don't go and make a heathen idol
of her, as the parson said. And after all, my dear," she
concluded, " I never found the work any the forwarder
for worrying about it over night. You can't mend a
thing before it's torn; and if you get a hundred pieces,
the rent'll always be sure just to go in the way that fits
none of'em. Things be perverse, most times, and there's
no way that I know by, of being up with them beforehand."
Betty's prediction seems coming true, perhaps is making itself true, for her cheery words about Mother have
lightened my heart, and the lightening of my heart seems
to lighten Mother's. The anxious look is wearing away
a little, although not the paleness. But I cannot say all
is right between Father and Jack.
This morning they had one of the word-battles Mother
and I so greatly dread.
We three had all but finished breakfast, and Father
had been making very sharp comments on Jack's absence,
when he himself came strolling in in his easy unconcerned




MRS. KITTY TRE VYL YAN            137
way, and seating himself at the table after a general
greeting, began to play with the home-brewed ale and
bread and cheese in rather a languid manner, every now
and then half suppressing a yawn.
" Over-wrought with last evening's work, I conclude,"
said Father, beginning, as he usually does, with the
politest sarcasm; "when young gentlemen toil till midnight, old men, of course, must expect to work in the
morning while they rest."
" I believe I was rather late last night, Sir," said Jack,
with an easy attempt at apology.
"And in good company, sir I" said Father. "A pleasant serenade you and your companions gave us, as you
parted. A little too much repetition, perhaps, in the
strains, and a slight uncertainty in the close."
" I was not drunk, sir," said Jack.
" I did not say you were, sir. I spoke of your company, not of your entertainment. Any gentleman may
be overtaken, now and then, among his equals, of course,
but no son of mine-no gentleman who bears the name of
Trevylyan-shall have my leave to herd with degraded
sots, who make brutes of themselves on small beer."
"There is a difference between claret and beer,'certainly, sir," said Jack, daintily quaffing his home-brewed,
while he glanced at the little bottle of French wine,
always set for Father (he acquired the habit in the army
in Flanders, Mother says, and cannot be expected to do
without itnow. If it is a little expensive, we can save
in other ways).




138              TEE DIARY OF
" There is a difference between you and me, sir!" retorted Father, dropping his sarcasm and enforcing his
words with some of those strong expressions, which
Mother says he also acquired in the army in Flanders.
" I give you notice that I pay no more bills at any low
tavern where you may choose to make boon-companions
of any rascally fellow in the town and neighbourhood."
" I quite agree with you in preferring better company,
sir," said Jack; " but I cannot afford it. I have neither
horses for the hunt, nor fine clothes to wear, nor fine
company to keep that I can see, unless I seek the society
of the Squire, who is carried to bed every night from the
effects of the best claret."
"Leave the table, sir," said Father, "if you cannot
speak except to insult me."
Jack rose without a murmur, throwing the remainder
of his bread and cheese to Trusty, but before he went
out of the door he turned back and took a cherry-coloured ribbon knot out of his pocket, which he said he
had bought for me at the fair.
" Is it paid for, sir?" said Father, in a tone of suppressed rage.
"I had no small change about me at the time," said
Jack," and I told them so. But Hugh Spencer happened
to be near, and he lent me the money."
"No daughter of mine shall wear stolen goods I"
said Father, and seizing the ribbon he threw it on the fire.
With that Jack grew warm and strode out of the
house, and Father grew cool, and seeing the tears in my




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             139
eyes, smoothed my hair tenderly, and told me not to fret,
my own brown hair was better than all the cherry-coloured knots in the world.
" It is not for the ribbon, Father," I said.
" For what, then?" he said testily.
" For thee and Jack, Father," I said.
He was silent a moment, and then he said:"Perhaps I was rather hard on the poor fellow. Boys
will be boys."
" It was not that I meant, Father," I said, for I felt as
if I must speak, because Mother was crying; and dearly
as Father loves her, he never will bear a word from her.
" It was not that. It is that you are right and Jack is
wrong, and yet you always let him make you seem wrong,
because he is so cool and he puts you in a passion."
" Fine education you give your children, madam;" said
he, turning to Mother; "your son puts me in a rage,
like an old fool as 1 am, and your chit of a daughter
reads me a sermon."
But he was not angry either with Mother or me.
And at dinner, like a generous gentleman, as he is, he
held out his hand to Jack and said:-." Perhaps I was hard on you, my boy. It was wellmeant, after all, buying your sister the ribbon."
But that was not all what I meant. Jack had come
off from the conflict a self-complacent victor, satisfied
that he had kept his temper under great provocation, and
had done a very generous action in buying me a ribbon
with Hugh Spencer's money, which, of course, especially




140              THE DIARY OF
now that the ribbon was burned, he would never think
of paying.
And Jack is so pleasant, that when I lecture him, it
always ends in a joke; and when Betty and Father
scold him, they always put themselves in the wrong, and
end by virtually begging his pardon; and when Mother
gently remonstrates: he ends in persuading her that he is
on the eve of turning over quite a new leaf, and indeed
had quite made up his mind to do so before she spoke.
But the new leaf is only a repetition of the old, and my
heart aches to think how it can end. It seems to me
people never drift by accident into the right haven.
July the Fifteenth.
I WONDER if any one ever quite carried out all
Bishop Taylor's rules every day. Perhaps he did
not mean it to be done. It so often happens with me
that one " action of piety" takes up the time of the
whole seven. For instance, one morning I seem able to
do nothing but rejoice in the thought how good God and
my Saviour are, and thank Him for all His goodness to
us. The next I am overwhelmed with the thought of
my own weakness and sinfulness, and the wrong things
I think, and say, and do. And this morning I seemed
able to do nothing but pray for Jack. I am so anxious
about him, and it is impossible to help loving him so
dearly, if it were only for Mother's sake, who loves him
as the apple of her eye.
I wonder if Mother is quite right. She seems to think




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             141
women were only made to endure patiently whatever the
men belonging to them inflict, consciously or unconsciously. But I think we should try to prevent them
being selfish and inconsiderate for us, because it does
them harm as well as us.
But am I right in seeing so much of " the mote in my
brother's eye?" Does our Lord mean that we should be
blind to the faults of those we love, or that, not being
blind, we should shut our eyes and say, " I will not see?"
He cannot mean this, for it would be false, and all false
things He abhors.
I think He must mean that we should love on, in spite
of all we see. How can we help each other unless we
see where each needs help? But we must see, not to
exhibit but to veil, not to judge but to help.
Love is not blind, I am sure, for true love lives and
breathes, and has its being in truth.
It is the selfishness in our love which is blind, the passionate selfishness which says, " This is mine, therefore,
I will think it fair, and will give the lie to any who say
it is not."
But God is Love, and He is the Truth, and He says to
us, " You are not sinless, you are not fair, but you are
mine; I have pitied and redeemed you, because you were
wretched and polluted, and I will make you fair."
And in our poor narrow measure I think we should
try to be and do the same.
My last attempt to take the mote out of my brother's




142              THE DIARY OF
eye has certainly not been at all successful, except that it
has answered the purpose of showing me more plainly
the beam in my own.
After writing about Jack as I did last night, I felt this
morning as if it were scarcely sisterly and honest not to
tell him what I thought this afternoon.
Betty was " meating the pigs," Father was guiding
the plough with Roger, the call to the labouring oxen
came pleasantly across the valley, Mother was sewing in
the hall, and I and Jack were alone in the kitchen, I
sorting herbs on the table at the open window, and he
polishing a new gun I had brought him from London.
The opportunity seemed favourable, and I ventured to
say,"Jack, you won't mind my saying so; but you will
pay Hugh Spencer for the cherry-coloured ribbon, won't
you?"
" How can you worry about such trifles, Kitty," he
said. "Just a few pence, not worth mentioning between
old friends, and gentlemen's sons."
" But they were lent," I said; " and a debt is a debt."
" Let Father pay it then," he said, laughing; " he has
the property. Or you yourself, Kitty; since you are so
particular."
"I would, indeed, Jack," I said; "but it is such a
trifle, I don't like to speak to Hugh about it."
" Nor do I," he said drily.
" But it's your debt;" I said.
" Kitty," he replied, " you are in the way to be one of




MRS. KITTY TRE VL YAN.           143
the most aggravating women I know. It's a symptom
of insanity when trifles take such possession of the brain.
You should be careful."
"But how much was it, Jack?" I persisted once more.
"I could give you the money, you know, and you could
pay Hugh."
"You may give me what money you please," he replied,
" I am not too proud to be thankful for trifles. But I
shall not pay Hugh. It would be a degradation to allude
to such nonsense. And besides," he continued,' Hugh
Spencer is a screw, and it is only what he deserved. I
asked him to lend me a few guineas a few days before,
and he refused. I was disgusted with his meanness."
I felt myself getting hot, and I said,"I think the meanness is in borrowing, not in not
lending."
"You are always ready enough to turn against me,"
said Jack; " but you may look in the Bible, and you'll
find plenty about the duty of lending, and not even
expecting to be paid again. It's like the publicans to
lend, expecting to receive as much again. And to refuse
to lend at all is worse; it's like the Pharisees and hypocrites. An open heart and an open hand, that's the kind
of Christianity I like, and that's the kind of Christian I
mean to be when I am rich. Do you think I would have
shut my purse to Hugh if I had had money to lend?"
"Jack," I said, " Hugh is not a publican nor a Pharisee, and you know it. You know he has impoverished
himself again and again to get you out of scrapes; and




144              THE DIARY OF
if he ever refused to help you, it was because he thought
it right to refuse; and he was right, I have no doubt.
And with all your grand intentions, when did you ever
deny yourself anything for any one?"
Jack had entangled me in his sophisms, and driven
me to indignant assertions, as he does Father. He was
cool as usual, and pushed his advantage.
" As to self-denial," he said, " if I had the means, it
would be no self-denial to me at all to help my friends,
but the greatest pleasure. And I never said Hugh was
a publican or a Pharisee. I only said the publicans and
Pharisees disliked lending money. I daresay they were
right; and Hugh was right, at all events, as regarded
the money."
" Oh, Jack!" I said, " how can you be so ungenerous
to Hugh. Have you forgotten the times without number
he paid for things you bought, when the people threatened to send the bills in to Father, because you said it
would break Mother's heart? Have you forgotten how,
again and again, some little comfort or delicacy Mother
needed, has come in from him,'just,' as he used to say,'because he happened to meet with it?' Ask all the
poor toiling men and women in the parish whether Hugh
Spencer is generous or not. And you know he is not
rich, and that his father never allows him much."
" No; I believe a certain carefulness about money is
hereditary in the Spencer family," Jack replied.
I knew he felt in the wrong, because he was so provoking. If 1 could only har3 been quiet, and let the




iaRS. KITTY TRE VYL rAN.          145
conviction work! But my heart was full, and my temper
vas up, and I said," Jack, I don't know what you will come to, and what
you will bring us all to. The Bible says,'The wicked
borroweth and payeth not again.' You seem to have
no honesty nor gratitude, nor shame; and I do believe
you will end in breaking Mother's heart."
"' Whew!" said Jack, drawing a long breath, and for
a moment stopping his polishing to look at me. " Whatever sins may be hereditary with the Spencers, a certain
peculiarity of temper is certainly hereditary with the
Trevylyans. My dear Kitty, Mother is coming into the
kitchen, and as you are so apprehensive about her feelings, I recommend you to withdraw. You look quite
excited. No doubt," he added demurely, "as Mother
used to say, you will be sorry for this to-morrow."
And I had to withdraw, for I could not stop my tears,
and what is worse, I shall have to be sorry to-morrow,
and to apologize to Jack; for the language I used was
certainly unnecessarily strong. Unnecessarily strong as
regarded the immediate occasion, but as regards that
habit of his, what language can be too strong? And
what an opportunity I have thrown away of helping him!
It was only yesterday I was thinking how feeble
my convictions of sin were compared with Betty's;
and I had resolved next Sunday seriously to read
Bishop Taylor's " Instruments, by way of Consideration,
to Awaken a Careless Person and a Stupid Conscience,"
and his "Form of Confession of Sins and Repentance,




146              THE DIARY OF
to be used on Fasting Days." But now there is no need
to go through a course of voluntary humiliation. I am
humbled enough in Jack's eyes as well as in my own. So
unworthy, so hasty, so passionate, how could I ever
think of setting myself up as a censor of other people.
Perhaps this pride and secret self-satisfaction is the beam
in my own eye. Perhaps, now I feel how really blind
and wrong I am, I may be able to speak to Jack to-morrow with more result. For he is wrong about the debts.
Perhaps when I speak to him from his own level, as no
better than he is, though in a different way, he will listen.
It is of no use. Jack received my apologies with
the graciousness of an offended but merciful sovereign.
" Do not mention such a trifle again, my dear little
Kitty. We all get a little excited at times; it is in the
family, although, perhaps, I am not so much troubled in
that way as the rest of you."
And when I made one more feeble attempt to make an
impression on him about the debts, he stopped me with," Perhaps I was even a little hot myself yesterday
about poor Hugh. Hugh is a good fellow at bottom.
We all have our little peculiarities, especially about
money. I only meant that when I have my commission,
and have won a few battles, and taken one or two towns,
and have my prize-money, that won't be exactly my way.
An open heart and an open hand, Kitty, that's my idea
of a Christian, although it may make one's purse a little
low at times."




IMS KIT1 Y TIEVYLYAN.             147
And he kissed me benignantly, and went away whistling, " Begone dull care."
What can I do? It is plain the price of the cherrycoloured bow is far too great a trifle for Jack's " open
hand" to contract to pick up and return.
And it's plain that he considers himself, although probably touched with a little of general infection of the sin
of Adam, quite singularly free from the peculiar infirmities
of the Spencers, and the Trevylyans, and every one else.
And it is plain that my hands are by no means steady
enough (even if my eyes were clear enough) to take the
mote out of my brother's eye.
Yet I cannot help feeling as if those habits of his
were like the little low clouds gathering far out in the
west,-like the little uneasy interrupted gusts of wind
which come when we are to have a storm,-like the little
cloud no bigger than a man's hand, which the prophet's
servant saw, when the heaven was so soon to be black
with clouds.
I should make a bad historian. I have never said a
word about our journey home from London.
Not that there is much to tell, because, after all, we
came from Bristol by sea, Father, and Hugh Spencer and
I, and I was so full of the thought of home, that I did
not observe anything particularly. The chief thing I
remember is a conversation I had with Hugh.
It was a calm evening. Father had rolled himself
up in his old military cloak with a foraging cap half




148              THE DIARY OF
over his eyes, and Hugh and I were standing by the side
of the ship watching the trail of strange light she seemed
to make in the waves. There was no one else on deck
but the man at the helm, and an old sailor mending
some ropes by the last glimmerings of daylight, and humming in a low voice to himself what seemed like an attempt at a psalm tune.
" Do you know what he is singing?" Hugh asked.
"Not from the tune. I do not see how any one could;
but the quaverings seem of a religious character, like
what the old people sing in church."
"It is a Methodist'hymn," Hugh said. "He said it
through to me this morning." Hugh always has a way
of getting into the confidence of working men, especially
of sea-faring people. The old man had been in the ship
which took Mr. John Wesley and Mr. Charles Wesley
to America. Several religious people were there also
from Germany, going out as missionaries. They called
themselves Moravians. At first he despised them all for
a foolish psalm-singing set. But they encountered a
great storm on the Atlantic, and the old sailor said he
should never forget the fearless calm among these Christian people during the danger. "It was," he said, " as if
they had fair weather of God's making around them, be
the skies as foul as they might." He could never rest
until he found out their secret. When he went ashore, he
attended the Methodist meetings everywhere, " and now,"
he said, " thank the Lord and Parson Wesley, my feet
are en the Rock aboard or ashore."




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             149
"These Methodists find their way everywhere Hugh,"
I said. "It does seem as if God blessed their work
more than any one's."
"And what wonder," he said; "who work as they
do?"
" But so many people-even good people-appear to
be afraid of them," I said. " Are they not sometimes too
violent? Do they not sometimes make mistakes?"
"No doubt they do," he said. " All the men who have
done great and good work in the world have made mistakes, as far as I can see. It is only the easy, cautious
people who sit still and do nothing, who make no mistakes, unless," he added, "their whole lives are one great
mistake, which seems probable."
And then he told me something of what he had seen in
the world and at Oxford; how utterly God seemed forgotten everywhere; how scarcely disguised infidelity
spoke from the pulpits, and vices not disguised at all
paraded in high places; how in the midst of this John
and Charles Wesley had stood apart, and resolved to live
to serve God and do good to men; how they had struggled long in the twilight of a dark but lofty mysticism,
until they had learned to know how God has loved us
from everlasting, and loves us now, and how Christ forgives sins now; and then, full of the joyful tidings, had
gladly abandoned all the hopes of earthly ambition for
the glorious ambition of being ambassadors for Christ to
win rebellious and wretched men back to Him.
"Morning, noon, and evening," he said, " John Wesley
7




150             ITE DIARY OF
goes about proclaiming the tidings of great joy in Ireland, America, throughout England, among colliers,
miners, and slaves; in prisons, to condemned criminals;
in hospitals, to the sick; in market-places, pelted with
stones; in churches, threatened with imprisonment; reviled by clergymen, assaulted by mobs, and arraigned by
magistrates. They go on loving the world that casts
them out, and constantly drawing souls out of the world
to God to be blessed."
" It seems like the Apostles," I said. " It is wonderful."
" Kitty," he said fervently, " when I think, I can not
wonder at it. The wonder seems to me that we should
wonder at it so much. If we believe the Bible at all;
if not now and then by some strange chance, but steadily,
surely, incessantly, the whole world of living men and
women are passing on to death, sinking into unutterable
woe or rising into infinite inconceivable joy; and if we
have it in our power to tell them the truths, which, if
they believe it, really will make all the difference to
them for ever, and if we find they really will listen, what
is there to be compared with the jy of telling these
truths? And the people do listen to Whitefield and
Wesley. Think what it must be to see ten thousand
people before you smitten with a deadly pestilence, and
to tell them of the remedy-the immediate remedy, which
never failed. Think what it must b1e to stand before
thousands of'wretched slaves with the ransom-money for
all in your hand, and the title-deeds of an inheritance for
each. Think what it must be to see a multitude of hag



IMRS. KITTY TREVYL YA.     151
gard, starving men and women before you with the power
such as our Lord had of supplying them all with bread
here in the wilderness, and to see them one by one pressing to you and taking the bread and eating it, and to see
the dull eye brightening, colour returning to the wan
cheek, life to the failing limbs. Think what it would
be to go to a crowd of destitute orphans and to be able
to say to each of them, "It is a mistake, you are not
fatherless. I have a message for every one of you from
your own Father, who is waiting to take you to His heart.'
Oh! Kitty, if there is such a message as this to take to
all the poor, sorrowing, bewildered, famished, perishing
men and women in the world, and if you can get them
to listen and believe it, is it any wonder that any man
with a heart in him should think it the happiest lot on
earth to go and do it, night and day, north and south, in
the crowded market-places, and in every neglected corner where there is a human being to listen?"
" I think not, indeed," I said; " but the difficulty seems
to me to get people to believe that they are orphans, and
slaves, and familhing."
"That is what Whitefield and the Wesleys do," he said.
"Or rather they made them understand that the faintness
every one feels at times is hunger, and that there is
bread; that the cramping restraint, the uneasy pressure
we so often feel, are from the fetters of a real bondage,
and that they can be struck off; that the bewildered,
homeless desolation so many are conscious of is the desolation of orphanhood, and that we have a Father who




i52              TIE DIARY OF
has reconciled us to himself through the blood of the
Cross."
As Hugh spoke, a selfish anxiety crept over me, and I
said," Shall you go then, Hugh, and forsake everything to
tell the good tidings far and wide?"
" If I am called," he said, " must I not go?"
"But how can you know you are called?" I said.
" To have the bread of life to give is one call," he said;
"to be able to go is another; to be willing to go is a
third. If I had these three calls, Kitty, I must listen;
the vocation in the word of God to proclaim it, the
vocation in my heart, the vocation of Providence."
"Have you these three, Hugh?" I said, feeling half
afraid he had.
" I think I have, except the call of Providence, Kitty.
I cannot see that it would be right to go directly counter
to my father's will; otherwise I think I am ready to go."
My heart was heavy. Would he then leave us all so
easily?
There was a long silence, the waves plashed around
us and closed in after us as we cut through them, with a
sound which in the morning light would have been crisp,
and fresh, and exhilarating; now, in the dimness and
stillness of night, it seemed to me strange, and dull, and
awful. And I thought not so much of the waves we were
bounding over and parting before us like the future, like
life; but of the waves which were closing in on us like
the past, like death. It gave me a sad lonely feeling as




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYA'V.            153
I thought how Hugh and I were standing there together,
and had been together all our lives, and how soon all the
sweet familiar past might slip away from us into the
darkness like the sea behind us, leaving at first a little
furrow and a track of foam, but very soon no track at
all,-and that Hugh seemed to care no more than the
sea. It felt very cold and desolate. I had been picturing life to myself as a quiet river, always passing on
indeed, but flowing by familiar places, with its own fountains, its own hills, its own little meadow banks to water,
and keep green, its own welcome at last to the sea.
And was life instead to be the mere crossing of a great
dreary sea, with one wave like another, and one great
round space like another, one horizon like another, except
for more or less of heat and cold, or more or less of storm
or calm?
Ought all places to religious people to be alike,-mere
spaces of this great featureless ocean we have to cross?
Ought all human beings to be alike to us, just masses of
undistinguishable " immortal souls?"
For the first time in my life my heart felt at discord
with Hugh's, I scarcely knew why.  A cold shadow
seemed to have come between us, and if it was religion
that cast it, it was wrong to wish it away.
But was it religion, I questioned myself? or was it
right? Certainly all people had not the same space or
the same place in St. Paul's heart. Only see the greetings at the end of the epistles. And our blessed Lord
himself, if He loved all equally, surely loved each differ



154                THE DIARY.
ently, each with His own piece of love, with a peculiar,
recognizing, watchful, personal affection, which. was for
that one, and no one else!
Perhaps Hugh was feeling in some way as I did, for
after that silence he said softly,"Perhaps I was deceiving myself. Perhaps it is just
because there is that barrier in my way that I have
been fancying I should be willing to go if there were
not."
Then he began to be afraid I felt the night air chill,
and brought me a little seat, and placed it at Father's
side, and wrapped me up in all the warm wraps he could
find. And we neither of us said anything more that
night.




V.
HAVE had a great pleasure to-day. A letter
from Cousin Evelyn, the first letter I ever received, except two from Mother in London;
and the very first I ever received at home from any one.
It has already, I believe, greatly increased my consequence in Betty's eyes.  I was shelling peas in the
kitchen window when a gentleman on horseback rode up
and asked Betty, who was scrubbing down the windowsill, if Miss Trevylyan lived there.
"What new-fangled title is that?" muttered Betty.
"Miss Trevylyan, indeed! if it is our Mrs. Kitty you
mean, she is there, and you can speak to herself."
(Betty's temper has not improved lately; and she has
relapsed into impenetrable silence about herself.)
Taking off his hat with a bow, the horseman handed
me, through the open window, the letter which Evelyn
had addressed in the new style.
It would have reached me before, he said, only it had
met with many misadventures.
The King's mail had been robbed on Hounslow
Heath; and although the "gentlemen of the road" had
(155)




156              THE DIARY OF
most politely restored the letters after rifling the bags of
their pecuniary contents, the postman had been wounded
in the fray, and this had caused a delay of some days.
Then there had been a flood over some part of the road
which had swept away the bridges; and finally, when the
letter reached Falmouth, the farmer's lad to whose care
it had been committed, after carrying it about some days
in his pocket, forgot for whom it was meant, and not
being able to read, judiciously carried it back to the postoffice nearest him; and there it might have been lying
for no one knows how much longer, had not the gentleman who gave it me politely volunteered to take it to its
destination on his way to his home further west.
The unusual clatter of horse's hoofs had brought
Father into the court, and nothing would satisfy him but
that the stranger should have his horse put up and remain to dinner with us. And then he had much to tell
that interested Father and Jack. Thus it was two or
three hours longer before I could open the precious
packet.
Jack listened eagerly to all the stranger's news, and
sighed for the commission which was to open the world
to him.
Father heard his narrative with very mingled emotions.
He was cheered to think that the Duke of Cumberland
had put down "those canting Scotch;" but his satisfaction
was diminished by the military successes of those "rascally French.' " We taught them another lesson, sir,"
he said, " in Marlborough's days!' He broke into many




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             15 7
strong military expressions at the thought of the troops
of "beggarly Germans" who had come over in the train
of the Hanoverian king.
He sympathized with the London mob who, when the
Hanoverian court-lady deprecated their wrath by exclaiming in apologetic tones from her carriage-window,
" My dear people, we come for all your goods," retorted,
"Yes, confound you, and for our chattels too." He was
disgusted with the Pretender parading as a hero at the
Paris opera-house, on the strength of the brave deeds of
the Highland chiefs who were being hanged for his sake
at Tyburn. But he consoled himself by thinking it was
just like those " confounded Papists," and drinking to the
Protestant Succession. But, again, his loyalty was sorely
tried by the tales of the quarrels between the King and
the Prince of Wales, and other court scandals I do not
care to write. "Terrible times, sir," he said; "the country in the hands of scoundrelly foreigners, and the county
jails full of villainous poachers, who will poach again, sir,
the instant their punishment is over. Sir, we are going
to destruction as fast as Jacobites and Whigs can carry
us."  He was in some measure restored to hope by
hearing of certain printers who had been compelled to
apologize on their knees on the floor of the House of
Lords for venturing to print reports of the debates in
the Lords and Commons. "Low fellows like them," he
said, " daring to report the words of gentlemen!"
But his spirits were again depressed by hearing of the
Methodist lay preachers who drew crowds around them




158              THE DIARY OF
in every county, from Northumberland to the Land's End.
" Sir," he said, " in my time we should have made quick
work with idle fellows who left the plough, or the
mason's trowel, or the tailor's goose, to preach whatever
canting trash they pleased. We should have dispersed
the congregation, sir, at the point of the bayonet, and
set the preacher in the stocks to meditate on his next
sermon. Sir, the Papists manage to keep down such
seditious fanatics; and shall we be outdone by the
Papists?"
" No doubt, sir," replied the stranger; "but would you
believe it, on my way here I met a fellow who is reported to be one of the worst among them, John Nelson,
the Yorkshireman, who told me he had met Squire
Trevylyan, and that he was a most hospitable gentleman; for he had given him the pasty he was carrying
for his own dinner, and had invited him to take his
bread-and-cheese and beer at his house whenever he came
that way."
Father looked perplexed for a moment at the contrast between his fierce denunciations against the Methodists in general, and his tolerance of the only Methodist
he had encountered in particular, but he soon rallied.
"Sir," he said, "that fellow is a true-born Englishman, as true to the Church and King as you or I. A
fellow, too, with such a chest and such muscle as would
be worth the King a troop of those beggarly Hessians
you spoke of. And he had been knocked down and
trampled on bJ a mob of cowardly ruffians, just before I




MRS. KITTY TREVYL YA4.            159
saw him. Sir, they knocked him down, and beat and
kicked him till the breath was well-nigh out of him. and
his head bleeding; and then they dragged him along the
stones by the hair of his head, and would have thrown
him into a draw-well, but for a high-spirited woman who
stood by the well and pushed several of the cowardly
bullies down.  I would take off my hat to that woman as soon as to the King. And then he got up and
very soon mounted his horse again, and rode forty miles
that very day as if nothing had happened. Sir, it is not
in any Englishman, least of all in an old soldier of the
Duke's, not to honour that brave fellow. Besides, he was
hungry; and would you have a Cornish gentleman turn
a hungry traveller from his door? Not if he were the
Pope himself, or the Pretender! Is it my fault if he
preaches what the parsons don't like on the strength of
my pasty? That fellow is no hypocrite, sir; I give my
word of honour for it.  A fellow  with such a' stout
heart, and chest, and the voice of a lion! Besides," continued Father softly, with some reserve, "I assure you
what he said to me afterwards was excellent; none of
your canting phrases, but plain sense about believing in
our Saviour and doing our duty. Upon my honour," continued Father, with increasing earnestness, "I felt the
better for it.  He said very plain things to me, such
as a man does not often hear; things, sir, that we shall
all have to remember one day; and I feel grateful to
the man for his honest, faithful words, and I trust I shall
not forget them. An old soldier has not a few things he




160              THE DIARY OF
might be glad to unlearn, and would like to be sure will
not be remembered against him."
The simple humility and earnestness of Father's manner put a stop to all further jesting; and before long the
stranger, respectfully saluting him, went off with Jack
-to saddle his horse, and I was free to fly to my chamber
and open
COUSIN EVELYN'S LETTER.
"  M      Y Dearly-beloved Cousin Kitty,-I suppose
you have no more idea how we missed your
dear, tender, soft, quiet, quaint, wise, comfortable, little
self, than a fire has how cold ihe room is when it goes
out. Mamma moaned for you more than she did for the
poodle that was drowned in the soup-tureen; she fancied
you shivering on the Cornish moors honey-combed, as
she understands they are, with fearful abysses, your life
endangered by grimy miners, your complexion by the seaair; and she wondered in the first place how you grew
up at all; and in the second, how you could possibly grow
to be what you are amidst the perils of that vast howling wilderness, or, indeed, to be anything beyond the
level of a Red Indian.
"Aunt Henderson, whom I have seen twice, regrets
you should be again in the darkness of a country she
has heard to be little better than heathen; but hopes that
the sound teaching you received at Hackney may be of
some use to her'poor Sister Trevylyan, who had so few
privileges.'




MRS. KITTY TREVYL YAl             161
"Harry swears if Mother will find him a girl like
Kitty he will marry her to-morrow; but how much he
brings you forward as a golden back-ground to throw
out the strong col rs on which he paints the'simpering
heaps of gauze aLd brocade,' recommended to his attention, I will not undertake to say.
" Papa roams about as unsettled as when anything detains him in London during the sporting season.  He
says you are a girl of the old style, such as he remenmbers when he was young; not too clever to make a
sensible man's home happy,'although he may not be
able to talk like a Frenchman about the fashions, or like
an Italian adventurer about operas and pictures, or like
a Bishop about religion.'
"But this again, Kitty, must not make you too conceited, as your excellencies serve to barb a dart at me,
in reference to a neighbouring potentate, whose estates
march with those of the Beauchamps, but whose manners
do not'march' with your correspondent's tastes.
" From the silent homage rendered to your memory
by Mamma's maid, and by Aunt Jeanie, the tongue of
Detraction herself can, however, detract nothing. Mamma's maid has recourse to genuine Devonshire, and a
genuine pocket-handkerchief to prevent genuine tears
from spoiling the powder of mamma's hair as she falters
out the praises of' the nicest and most affable young
lady she ever set eyes on.' And Aunt Jeanie soars high
into Scotch and the Bible, as she tells how the winsome
lassie, the tender lammie, came day after day to listen




l62               THE DIARY OF
to an old wife like herself; and how you made her feel
as if the air of the Highlands was breathing fresh on
her face once more, and the voices of old times were in
her ears.
"Oh, Kitty darling, I wo:ld give all I have in the
world to carry with me the fresh air you bring everywhere! There is something about you, you little witch,
as much sweeter and more exhilarating than all the wit,
and fashion, and cleverness of our London world, as the
country air on a spring morning is sweeter than all the
perfumes of a London drawing-room. What is it, Kitty,
except that you are just your own sweet natural self?
Yes, there is no perfume like freshness! and there is no
moral or mental perfume like truth!
" And that is just the explanation of some of my difficulties, Cousin Kitty; for I have my difficulties, Kitty.
Life-I mean the inner, religious life-is not so smooth
to me as you may think, as I thought it must be always
henceforth when I heard that wonderful sermon of Mr.
Whitefield's. Or rather, it is not so plain. For I did
expect roughnesses, more perhaps than I have met with;
but I did not expect perplexities such as I feel.
"My difficulties are not interesting, elevating difficulties, Kitty, such as would draw forth sweet tears of sympathy and smiles of tender encouragement at some of the
religious tea parties. No one has taken the trouble to
make me a martyr. I should rather have enjoyed a little
more of that, which is, perhaps, the reason I have not had
it. Mamma was a l.ttle uneasy at first; but when she




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             163
found I did not wish to dress like a Quaker or to preach
publicly from a tub, she was relieved, and seems rather
to think me improved. Harry says all girls are sure to
run into some folly or another, if they don't marry,
and probably even if they do; and some new whim
is sure soon to drive out this. Papa says women must
have their amusements; and if I like going to see the old
woman at the manor, and taking them broth and reading them the Bible, better than riding a thousand miles
for a wager, as a young lady did the other day, he thinks
it is the more sensible diversion of the two. His mother
gave the people broth and bitters, and probably they like
the Bible better than the bitters. I am a good child on
the whole, he says; and if I ride to the meet with him
in the country, and give myself no sanctimonious airs,
he cannot object to my amusing myself as I like in
town. Indeed, he said one day he thought Lady Huntingdon's preachings were far better things for ayoung
woman to hear, than the scandalous nonsense those
Italian fellows squalled at the opera. But, Kitty, although
he talks so lightly, do you know, the other evening, as he
had taken his candle and was kissing me good-night, he
said"'By the way, Eve, if you don't fancy going with me
all the way to-morrow, I'll drop you at the game-keeper's
lodge beyond the wood. His old woman is very ill, and
she says you told her something that cheered her heart
up; so you might as well gc again. She is an honest old
soul, and she says you reminded her of your Aunt Maud




164              THE DIARY OF
who died, and she was a good woman, if ever there was
one."
" So you see, Cousin Kitty, I have little chance of
martyrdom.
" My difficulties are from the religious people themselves. There seems to me so much fashion, so much
phraseology, so much cutting and shaping, as if the fruits
of the Spirit were to be artificial wax fruits, instead of
real, living, natural fruits.
" With you, Kitty, it is so different. You like what
you like, and love those you love, and not merely try
to like what you ought to like, and to work yourself
up to something like love for those you ought to love.
" I find it difficult to explain myself. What I feel is,
that religious people, no doubt from really high motives,
are apt to become unnatural-to lose spontaneousness.
" I do not see this in Mr. Whitefield and Lady Huntingdon, or in Aunt Jeanie, nor, my sweet cousin, in you.
Lady Huntingdon is a queen, no doubt; but we must
have kings and queens. But it is the followers of Mr.
Whitefield, the ladies who form Lady Huntingdon's
court, that trouble me in this way.
"There is a cutting down, a rounding off, a clipping
into shape, like the cypresses in the Dutch gardens, and
a suspicious uneasiness about any self-willed shoot which
asserts its right to sprout beyond the prescribed curves,
which provokes me beyond measure.
" I feel sometimes in those circles as if I were being
put in a mortar end pestled into a sweetmeat; as if all




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYANE             165
the natural colour in me were being insensibly toned
down to the uniform gray; as if all the natural tones of
my voice were being in spite of me pitched to a chant,
like the intoning of the Roman Catholic priests. It is
very strange this tendency all religious schools seem to
have towards monotone and uniform, from the Papists to
the Quakers. And in the Bible it seems to me, there is
as little of it as in nature.
" I was becoming very rebellious when at Bath, before we escaped into the free, natural country life; and
now that we are in London once more, it is coming over
me again like a terrible spell. But I am determined I will
not be pestled into a sweetmeat! The great fear is, that
I shall ferment myself into an acid.
" But if I could only keep close to God himself, to
my glorious Saviour, to his free Spirit, there could be
no danger of either..
The following of Christ is freedom, expansion, and
growth. The following of his followers is copying, imitation, contraction. And it is to the following of Christ,
close, always, with nothing and no person between, that
we are called, all of us, the youngest, the weakest, the
meanest. You and I, Kitty! as well as Lady Huntingdon, and Mr. Whitefield, and Mr. Wesley, and St. Paul.
" And Christ our Lord, if we yield ourselves honestly,
wholly to him, will develop our hearts and souls from
within, outward and upward from the root, which is
growing; instead of our having to trim and clip them
from outside inward, which is stunting. He will give to




166              THE DIA.RY OF
each seed' his own body.' Is it not true, Kitty? I want
very much to have a talk with you, for I cannot find
other people's thoughts and ways fit me, any more than
their clothes; and I want to know how much of this is
wrong, and how much is right.
For instance, the other evening Lady Emily*     X     *    *     *     *     *    X*    *
"I had written so far, when an opportunity occurred
of going to hear Mr. John Wesley preach at the Foundry.
The sermon seemed made for me. It was on evil-speaking; and very pungent and useful I found it, I assure
you.
" Such an angelic face, Kitty! —the expression so calm
and lofty, the features so refined and defined, regular
and delicate, just the face that makes you sure his
mother was a beautiful woman (one of his aunts was
painted by Sir Peter Lely as one of the beauties of the
day). Yet there is nothing feminine about it, unless as
far as an angel's face may or must be partly feminine.
Eyes not appealing but commanding; the delicate
mouth firm as a Roman general's; self-control, as the
secret of all other control, stamped on every feature.
If anything is wanting in the face and manner, it
seemed to me just that nothing was wanting-that it
was too angelic. You could not detect the weak, soft
place, where he would need to lean instead of to support.
He seemed to speak almost too much from heaven; not,
indeed, as one that had not known the experiences of
earth (there was the keenest penetration and the deepest




MIRS. KITTY TREVYLYA1.             167
sympathy in his words), but as one who had surmounted
them all. The glow on his countenance was the steady
sunlight of benevolence, rather than the tearful, trembling, intermittent sunshine of affection, with its hopes
and fears. The few lines on his brow were the lines
of effective thought, not of anxious solicitude.  If I
were on a sick-bed in the ward of an hospital, I should
bask in the holy benevolent look as in the smile of an
angel; but I do not know that he would (perhaps
could) be tenderer if I were his sister at home.
"I should like to hear Mr. Wesley preach every Sunday; he would send me home detected in my inmost
infirmities, unmasked to myself, humbled with the conviction of sin, and inspired with the assurance of victory.
" And yet if on Monday I came to ask his advice in a
difficulty, I am not quite sure he would understand me.
I am not sure that he would not come nearer my heart
in the pulpit than in the house; that while he makes
me feel singled out and found out, as if I were his only
hearer in the crowd, if I were really alone with him I
should not feel that he regarded me rather as a unit in'the great multitude no man can number,' than as myself, and no one else.
" But I am running away from his sermon, as if I
winced from it, as I did.
" He began with the words"' Speak evil of no man,' says the great apostle-' as
plain a command as " Thou shalt do no murder." But
who, even among Christians, regard this command?




168:iHE DIARY OF
Yea how few are there that so much as understand it.
What is evil-speaking? It is not the same as lying or
slandering. All a man says may be as true as the Bible,
and yet the saying of it be evil-speaking.  For evilspeaking is neither more nor less than speaking evil of
an absent person; relating something evil which was
really done or said by one that is not present when it is
related. In our language this is also, by an extremely
proper name, termed " back-biting."  Nor is there any
material difference between this and what we usually
style " tale-bearing." If the tale be delivered in a soft
and quiet manner (perhaps with some expressions of
good-will to the person, and a hope that things may
not be quite so bad), then we call it " whispering."
But in whatever manner it be done, the thing is the
same, if we relate to another the fault of a third person
when he is not there to answer for himself.
"'And how extremely common is this sin, among all
orders and degrees of men. How do high and low,
rich and poor, wise and foolish, learned and unlearned,
run into it continually!  What conversation do you
hear of any considerable length whereof evil-speaking is
not one ingredient?
"'And the very commonness of this sin makes it difficult. to be avoided. If we are not deeply sensible of the
danger, and continually guarding against it, we are liable
to be carried away by the torrent.  In this instance,
almost the whole of mankind are, as it were, in a conspiracy against us.  Besides, it is recommended from




MPS8. KITTY FREVYLYAl.         169
within as well as from without. There is scarcely a
wrong temper in the mind of man that may not occasionally be gratified by it-our pride, anger, resentment.
"'Evil-speaking is the more difficult to be avoided,
because it frequently attacks us in disguise. We speak
thus out of a noble, generous (it is well if we do not say),
holy indignation, against those vile creatures. We commit sin from mere hatred of sin 1 We serve the devil
out of pure zeal for God!'
" Then having laid bare the disease, Mr. Wesley gave
the remedy.
"'First, "If thy brother sin against thee, go and tell
him of his fault between thee and him alone."  This,'
he said,'requires the greatest gentleness, meekness, and
love. If he opposes the truth, yet he cannot be brought
to the knowledge of it but by gentleness. Still speak
in a spirit of tender love, which " many waters cannot
quench." If love is not conquered, it conquers all things.
Who can te the force of love?
"'This step our Lord commands us to take first,' Mr.
Wesley went on to say.  No alternative is allowed.'
"' Do not think to excuse yourself for taking an entirely'different step by saying, " I did not speak to any one
until I was so burdened I could not refrain."  And
what a way have you found to unburden yourself I God
reproves you for a sin of omission, for not telling your
brother of his fault; and you comfort yourself by a sin
of commission, by telling your brother's fault to another
person. Ease bought by sin is a dear purchase'




170              THE DIARY OF
"Afterwards he exhorted us to'hear evil of no man.
The receiver is a;s bad as the thief.  If there were
no hearers, there would be no speakers of evil.'
" The close of the sermon was something in these
words:"' 0 that all of you who bear the reproach of Christ,
who are in derision called Methodists, would set an
example at least in this! If you must be distinguished,
let this be the distinguishing mark of a Methodist" He censures no man behind his back: by this fruit you
may know him." What a blessed effect of this selfdenial we should quickly feel in our hearts! How
would " our peace flow as a river," when we thus followed peace with all men! How would the love of God
abound in our souls while we thus confirmed our love
to the brethren I And what an effect would it have on
all that were united together in the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ! How would brotherly love continually
increase.  If one member suffered, all would suffer
with it; if one was honoured, all would rejoice with it.
Nor is this all. What an effect this might have even on
the wild, unthinking world.  Once more, with Julian
the Apostate, they should be constrained to cry, " See
how these Christians love one another!" Our Lord's
last solemn prayer would be fulfilled-his kingdom
would come. The Lord hasten the time, and enable us
to love one another, not only in word and tongue, but
in deed and in truth!"'
" There, sweet cousin, thus did I sit rebuked and in



MRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN.           171
structed, and after that you will of course never expect
to hear what Lady Emily said the other evening. But
as to the duty of taking her apart and telling her, I
am not clear.  This kind of assault is not pleasant,
except to very pugnacious natures, so that this method of
speaking evil to instead of, of people, has farther the
great advantage of making one try to find out apologies
for the faults one would have to condemn in this straightforward manner.  And very often, I do believe, we
should find the apology truer than the accusation.
"These wonderful Wesleys, Kitty! I do think they
are like the apostles more than any people that ever
lived; at least on the side on which they were apostles.
I cannot yet get over the feeling that St. Paul or St. John,
and certainly St. Peter, would have been easier to ask
advice from about little home-difficulties.
"I have been hearing about them from your friend,
Mr. Hugh Spencer. Papa likes him, and he has been to
see us several times, and when Papa goes out, we have
had long conversations concerning the Methodists, and
also concerning another subject (or object) in which we
are both greatly interested.
" I should like to have spent a week at that Epworth
parsonage where the Wesleys were cradled-that home
which was free, and happy, and full of healthful play
as any home in the holidays, and orderly, and full of
healthful work as any school; where the'odious noise'
of the crying of children was not suffered, but there was




172              THE DIARY OF
no restraint in their gleeful laughter; to have listened
to the singing with which the childish voices opened
and closed their lessons; to have seen, at five o'clock,
the oldest take apart the youngest that could speak, the
second the next, and so on, and read together the Psalm
for the day and a chapter from the New Testament;
to have gone through the quiet bedrooms three hours
afterwards, and seen the rosy, sleeping faces, even the
baby of a year old lying quiet although awake, or only
venturing to'cry softly;' or more than all to have
watched invisibly the mother conversing alone, as she
did, with one of her little ones every evening, listening
to their childish confessions, and giving counsel to their
childish perplexities.
" So deep was the hold that mother had on the hearts
of her sons, that years afterwards, in his early manhood, she had tenderly to rebuke John for that'fond
wish' of his of dying before she died.
"There were nineteen children born in that home;
thirteen of them were living at one time. The pressure
of all the endless small cares of poverty was added to
the labour of teaching and training those healthy, eager,
clever children, all of them, no doubt, endued with a
considerable portion of the will and character of their
parents. And their circumstances were not improved
by the father's uncompromising politics; many of the
parishioners paid the tithes in the most inconvenient
way they could, and the authorities, on the plea of a
small debt, once threw Mr. Wesley into prison. Whilst




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             173
there, his noble wife sold her rings to support him;
other female superfluities no doubt had disappeared before, and his books were no superfluities in his eyes or
hers; and in prison he read the prayers, and preached
to the wretched inmates, aud found the jail (so he wrote
to the Archbishop of York) a larger and more important
parish than his own.
" Yet burdened as she was, no one can picture Mrs.
Wesley as, creeping with stooping shoulders through
life, a weary heavy-laden woman. All her work was
done with a hearty cheerfulness.  At fifty, she said, in
a letter to the Archbishop of York (tried as she had
been with poverty) that she believed it was easier to
be content without riches than with them.
" There was a secret spring which fed her inmost heart.
Every morning and every evening she spent an hour
alone with God. That morning hour of prayer (your
friend Hugh Spencer said), made the day's yoke easy and
its burdens light; that evening hour kept her heart and
conscience at rest.
" And so fresh did those week-day Sabbath-hours keep
her strength, that on Sundays, during her husband's absence, she found it no toil to gather his poor parishioners in her kitchen and read a sermon, pray, and converse in a simple and solemn way with them. Two hundred were sometimes assembled in this way.     An
unfavourable report of this'conventicle' was sent to her
husband, and on his remonstrating she wrote that she
was preparing hearers for his church-services. But if
8




174              TIlE DIARY OF
he continued to object, she simply requested,'Do not
advise, but command me to desist.' His command was
God's authority for her, and she would submit unhesitatingly. His advice was man's advice, and she could
not citer her convictions at his will or her own.
" The old home at Epworth Rectory is in other hands
now; the last time Mr. John Wesley went there, being
refused his father's pulpit, he preached to the people from
his father's grave-stone.
"Both father and mother are gone now. The family
have the recollection of two saintly death-beds to crown
the memory of those two noble lives. When dying, old
Mr. Wesley laid his hand on the head of his son-Charles,
and said,'Be steady; the Christian faith will surely revive in this kingdom; you will see it, though I shall not.'
"'The inward witness!' he said, at another time,'the
inward witness! that is the proof, the strongest proof of
Christianity.'
" His last words were,'God chastens me with strong
pain, but I praise Him for it, I thank Him for it, I love
Him for it.' His last act was receiving the Holy Communion with his family.
"The mother died only a few years since in her
seventy-third year; calm, serene, painless, looking up to
heaven, she passed away (as she had wished) whilst her
children were singing around her bed a' Psalm of praise
to God.' As the praises of earth fell dim and distant
on the ear of the dying, other songs of everlasting joy
were beginning to burst upon her.




MRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN.            175
"I hear Mr. John Wesley preach, and read those deep
heart-stirring hymns of his brother Charles with far
greater interest now that I know what their father's house
was like; what a pure, sweet stream of home memories
flows round their lofty devotion to God. And this devotion seems quite unreserved. When Mr. John Wesley's
income was thirty pounds a year, he spent twenty-eight
and gave away two. Now that it is one hundred and
twenty, he still spends twenty-eight, and gives away
ninety-two. The return he made of his plate lately to
the tax collectors was,'Two silver spoons, one in London
and one at Bristol.'
" What wonders one man may do, without vanity and
covetousness  and with a sufficient motive! Yet his
dress is at any rime, they say, neat enough for any society, except when some of the mobs, who have frequently
attacked him, but never injured him, may have considerably ruffled his attire.  His temper they could never
ruffle,; and in the end, his unaffected benevolence, his
Christian serenity and gentlemanly composure are sure
to overcome.  The ringleaders more than once have
turned round on their followers and dared them to touch
the parson. His calm, commanding voice has been heard.
Silence has succeeded to hootings, and sobs to silence, and
Hugh Spencer says, there is scarcely a place where the
Methodists have been assailed by mobs where, from the
very dregs of these very mobs, men and women have not
been rescued, and found, not long after,'sitting clothed
and in their right mind,' at the feet of the Saviour.




176              THE DIARY OF
" Mr. Whitefield is very different. Any one can understand why the Wesleys should do great things, especially Mr. John. He is a man of such will and power, such
strong practical sense and determination, so nobly trained
in such a home. But Mr. Whitefield's strength seems
to be obviously not in him but in the truth he speaks.
His early home, an inn at Bristol, his early life spent in
low occupations among low companions, his one great
gift, suited one would have thought more to a theatre
than a pulpit. But his whole heart is on fire with the
love of Christ and the love of perishing immortal men
and women.    And he has the great gift of making
people listen to the message of God's infinite grace. The
message does the rest. And what it does, Kitty, I can
hardly write of without tears.
" He tells people all over the world-morning, noon,
and night, every day of his life-duchesses, wise men,
colliers, and outcasts (as he told me), that we have a
great burden on our hearts; and we know it. He tells
us that burden is sin; and whether we knew it or
not before, we know, when he says so, it is true. He
weeps and tells us that unless that great burden is lifted
off now, it will never be lifted off, but will crush us down
and down for ever; and half his audience weep with him.
He tells us it can be lifted off now, here, this instant;
we may go away from that spot, unburdened, forgiven,
rejoicing, reconciled to God, without a thing in time or
eternity to dread any more; the burden of terror exchanged for an infinite wealth of joy, the debt of guilt




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             177
into a debt of everlasting gratitude. And then, just as
the poor stricken hearts before him, each hanging on
his eloquent words as if he were pleading with each
alone, begin to thrill with a new hope; lie shows us how
all this can be. He shows us (or God reveals to us),
Christ, the Lamb of God, the Son of God fainting under
the burden of our sin, yet bearing it all away. And
we forget Mr. Whitefield, the congregation, time, earth,
ourselves, everything but the Cross to which he has led
us, but that suffering, smitten, dying Saviour at whose
feet we stand.  And from that moment we seem no
longer to be listening, but only looking. We are looking on God. And that look is not death but life, life
everlasting, for God is in Christ reconciling us to himself. We are looking on God and loving Him; God is
looking on us and loving us. And then, as we gaze,
slowly the truth dawns on us; that God is not now
beginning to look on us with that look of infinite compassion and tenderness, He has been caring for us all
-our lives; He has loved us with an everlasting love. He
has been drawing us, blind, wilful, unwilling, to Himself.
It is our first look, but oh, it is not His! Then the
barriers of time and death seem gone, for sin was their
substance, and that is taken away; and we are in
eternity; eternal life has begun, for Christ is our life, and
we are for ever with Him.
"Kittyj I believe Mr. Whitefield has brought this unufterablejoy to thousands and thousands, and that he lives
for nothing else but to bring it to thousands more. And




178               THE DIARY OF
this whole generation must pass away before his sermons
can be coolly criticised, or his name uttered in any
large assembly of Christian people without bringing tears
to many eyes.
"Dear Kitty, I have heard Mr. Wesley again, and his
sermon was on our being stewards of God. I cannot
tell you what that sermon did for me. That first sermon
of Mr. Whitefield's seemed to lay me prostrate, beggared, utterly destitute, at the feet of my Saviour, thenceforth to be nothing and have nothing in myself, yet
to possess all things in Him.
"Mr. Wesley's noble words, on the other hand, seemed
to be like God's gracious hands once more investing me
with all my forfeited possessions, no more as earthly
dross, but as priceless, heavenly treasures.  Anything
God has given me-health, youth, any power of pleasing or influencing others, every faculty of the body,'that
exquisitely wrought machine,' as he termed it; every
power of the mind; our money, which he calls our poorest
and meanest possession; every relationship of life, every
moment of time, seemed given back to me, new coined,
stamped with the seal of God, and made current through
eternity. If before, in the first glimpse of eternity, all
the things I had most prized seemed dust and dross,
now, themselves linked to eternity, they seem to me sacred
and priceless.'How  precious, above all utterance,
above all conception,' as he said,' is every portion of our
life. Not, indeed, that there are any works of supere



IRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN.            179
rogation; that we can ever do more than our duty
seeing all we have is not our own but God's; all we
can do is due to Him. We have not received this or
that thing, but everthinig from Him; therefore everything is His due.'
"After that sermon I went back to the good people
who gather around Lady Huntingdon, of whom I wrote
to you in the beginning of this letter, or rather this
book of chronicles; and in the light of that truth all
seemed to me transformed. We are fellow-servantsfellow-workers; and I came to them humbly to ask
them to put me in the way of doing some humble work,
such as a beginner might attempt. Then, Kitty, I found
that many of these good women, whose manners I had
been criticizing at my leisure, had meantime been engaged in countless labours of love; and as I went
with them to the schools, the hospitals, and the dwellings
of the poor, the voices which brought gladness among
little.destitute children, and a rare sunshine into the
dwellings of the London poor,-which were longed for
on lonely sick-beds, and welcomed with grateful smiles
by wan faces drawn with pain,-have passed for me into
~a region far beyond the icy touch of criticism; they are
dear to me, Kitty.  We are bound together as fellowservants as well as brethren. It seems to me nothing
unites us like a common object to work for.; partly, I
suppose, because working shows us our own deficiencies,
and humility and forbearance spring up from one root.
I think it would be a good rule if every critic were com



180              THE DIARY OF
pelled by -law to write a book himself. He would see
then what the difficulties of those he criticizes are; and
the world would see what his powers are, which, in many
cases, would, I have no doubt, tend to- produce in the
critic a wholesome humility.
" I have come to the conclusion, Kitty, that we obtain
a grander and truer view of lofty things from below than
from above; looking up to them for our own level instead
of looking down on them, fore-shortened by their own
elevation, from the height to which but for them we never
could have climbed.
"And now, Cousin Kitty, I must seal up my budget,
and send it this very day, or it will grow so long, you
will forget the beginning before you reach the end. I
had thought of sending it by the hand of your friend
Mr. Hugh Spencer, when he passes through London from
the University, but it is of no use to wait for him; and
as there is nothing Jacobite or fanatically Whig in my
lucubrations, I must trust them to the ordinary chances
of the mail, and not wait till next week, when we leave
London again, and they would have to be committed to
the extraordinary perils of the cross posts from Beauchamp Manor. I suppose the mails, like Miss Pawsey's
fashions, do reach you at least'once in every two or
three years.'
"Before finishing, however, I must tell you of a conversation which took place to-day.
"This morning two gentlemen who were calling on
papa were lamenting the degeneracy of the times.




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.              18
"One was an old general, and le said,"'We Lave no heroes now-not a great soldier left.
Since Marlborough died not an Englishman has appeared
who is fit to be'more than a general of division. There
is neither the brain to conceive great plans, nor the will
to execute them, nor the dash which so often changes
reverses into victories.'
" My great-uncle, a Fellow of Brazennose, took up the
wail.'No, indeed,' he said;'the ages of gold and iron
and brass are over; the gblden days of Elizabeth and
Shakspeare, and the scattered Armada, the iron of the
Revolution (for rough as they were, these men were
iron); the brass of the Restoration; and now we have
nothing to do but to beat out the dust and shavings into
tinsel and wire.'
" We have plenty of wood at least for gallows,' interposed my Brother Harry.' Cart-loads of men are taken
every week to Tyburn. I saw one myself yesterday.'
" For what crimes?' asked the general.
"' One for stealing a few yards of ribbon; another for
forging a draught for ~50,' said Harry.
"'Ah,' sighed the general,'we have not even energy
left to commit great crimes!'
"'Then,' resumed my great-uncle,'what authors or
artists have we worth the name? Pope, Swift, and
Addison, Wren and Kneller,-all are gone. We have
not amongst us a man who can make an epic march, or
a satire bite, or a cathedral stand, or a picture or a statue
live. Imitators of imitations, we'ive at the fag-end of




18 2              THE DIARY Of'
time, without great thinkers, or great thoughts, or great
deeds to inspire either.'
"'There is a little bookseller called Richardson, who,
the ladies say, writes like an angel,' observed my Brother
Harry;'and Fielding at all events is a gentleman, and
knows something of men and manners.'
"'And pretty men and manners they are, from what
I hear,' was my great-uncle's dolorous response.'But
what are these at best? Not worth the name of literature; frippery for a lady's drawing-room,-no more to
be called literature than these mandarins or monsters are
to be called sculpture.'
"'Mr. Handel's music has some, life in it,' replied
Harry, roused to opposition (although Harry does not
know' God save the Queen' from'Rule Britannia!').
"'Yes, that is all we are fit for,' was the cynical reply,
-'to put the great songs of our fathers to jingling tunes.
We sit stitching tinsel fringes for the grand draperies of
the past, and do not see that all the time we are no better than tailors working at our own palls.'
"'Besides,' resumed the old general,'Handel is no
Englishman. The old British stock is dying out, sir.
We have not even wit to put our forefathers' songs to
music, nor sense to sing them when that is done. We
have nothing left but money to pay Germans to fight for
us, and Italians to scream for us.'
"' And that is going as fast as it can,' interposed papa.' What public man hav 3 we, Whig or Tory, who would
not sell his country for r pension, or his soul for a place?'




.MiS. KITTY TIlEVYL YAN.          183
"'Soul, nephew!' said my great-uncle.'You are using
words grown quite obsolete. Who believes in such a
thing as the salvation or perdition of the soul in these
enlightened timss?'
"'The Methodists do, at any rate, sir,' replied Harry,
maliciously;'and Lady Huntingdon, and my Sister Evelyn, and my Cousin Kitty.'
" Harry had drawn all the forces of the enemy on him
at once by this assault.
"' Sir,' said papa,'I beg' henceforth you never couple
your sister's or your cousin's name with those low fanatics.
If Evelyn occasionally likes longer sermons than I can
stand, she is a dutiful child, and costs me not a moment's
anxiety, which is more than can be said for every one;
and if she visits the old women at the Manor, so did her
grandmother, who lived before a Methodist had been
heard of.'
"'Methodists!" exclaimed the general, indignantly;'it was only the other day I was told of one of them,
John Nelson, who was enlisted by force, and who would
have made as fine a soldier as the king has but for his
confounded Methodism. They actually had to let him
off, lest he should bite the other fellows, and make them
all as mad as himself. Why, sir, he actually reproved the
officers for swearing, and in such a respectful way, the
cunning fellow, they could do nothing to him; and when
an ensign had him put in prison, and threatened to have
him whipped, he seemed as happy there as St. Paul him



184'HUE D11J Y OF
him speak and preach. The infection of his fanatical
religion spread in every town through which they took
him. They could find nothing by which they might keep
hold of him; for he was no Dissenter; he professed to
delight to go to church more than anything, and to receive the sacrament. And the end of it was, the major
had to set him free; and actually was foolish enough to
say, if he preached again without making a mob, if he
was able, he would go and hear him himself; and he
wished all the men were like him. A most dangerous
rascal,-a fellow with the strength of a lion and the courage of a veteran; and yet he would rather preach than
fight. I would make short work with such fellows, if I
had Tyburn for a few days in my own hands, with a troop
of Marlborough's old soldiers.'
"'It would be of no use, sir,' replied Harry;'they
would beat you even at Tyburn. I saw a man hung there
yesterday as peacefully as if he had been ascending tile
block for his country or his king. He said Mr. John
Wesley had visited him in the prison, and taught him
how to repent of his sins and seek his God, and made
him content to die. The people were quite moved, sir.'
"' No doubt I the people are always ready enough to
be moved,' said the general,'especially by any rogue who
is on the point of being hanged. These things should
be met silently, sharply, decisively.'
"' The Pope has tried that before now, sir,' I ventured
to suggest,' and not found it altogether answer,-at least
not in England.'




MRS. KITTY TREV YLYAY.            185
"'True Evelyn,' said my great-uncle, meditatively.'These outbursts of fanaticism are like epidemics; they
will have their time, and then d&e out. In the Middle
Ages, whole troops of men and women used to march
through the country, wailing and scourging themselves,
and in the wildest state of excitement; but it was let
alone, and it passed off; and so it will be with Methodism, no doubt.'
"'But, uncle,' I said,' those Methodists do not scourge
themselves, nor any one else. They only preach to the
people about sin, and the judgment-day, and our Saviour.'
t"' And the people sob, and scream, and faint, and fall
into convulsions, said Harry, turning on me.
"'Of course,' said my great-uncle,'we are not Papists.
Fanaticism will take another form in Protestant countries; and as to ignorant men preaching about sin and
the judgment-day, what have they to do with it? I
preached them a sermon on that subject myself last Lent,
In St. Mary's, and no one sobbed, or fainted, or was at all
excited.'
"' But, uncle,' I said,' the people who are to be hanged
at Tyburn, and the Yorkshire colliers, cannot come to
hear you at St. Mary's.'
"'However little it might excite them!' interposed
Iarry.
"' Is it not a good thing, uncle,' I continued,'that some
one, however imperfectly, should preach to the people
who can't come to hear you at St. Mary's, or who won't?'
"'Preach in the fields to those who won't come td




i86              THI DIARY OF
church to be taught' said my great-uncle;'the next
thing will be to take food to the people at home who
won't come to the fields to work, and beg them to be so
kind as to eat it I'
"'But, dear uncle,' I said,' the worst of it is, the people
who are dying for want of this kind of food don't know
it is hunger they are fainting from. You must take
them the food before they know it is that they want.'
"'Nonsense, Evelyn,' he said;'if they don't know, they
ought. I have no notion of pampering and coaxing
criminals and beggars in that way. Everything in its
place. The pulpit for sermons, and Tyburn for those
who won't listen. But how should young women understand these things?  There is poor John Wesley, as
orderly and practical a man as ever was seen before he
was seized with this insanity or imbecility. The times
are very evil; the world is turned upside down; and
this fanatical outburst of Methodism is one of the worst
symptoms of the times. It is the growth on the stagnant
pond,-the deadly growth of corrupt and decaying age.'
"But, oh I Cousin Kitty, when the world was turned
upside down seventeen hundred years ago, in that corrupt and decaying age of ancient times, people found at
last it was only as a plough turns up the ground for a
new harvest.
"And sometimes when I hear what Mr. Hugh Spencer
tells me of the multitudes thronging to listen to Mr.
Whitefield and Mi Wesley, and the other preachers in




MliS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.            187
America and Wales, and among the Cornish miners, and
the colliers of the north, and the slaves in the West
Indies, and of hearts being awakened to repentance and
faith and joy even in condemned cells it seems to me
as if instead of death a new tide of life was rising and
rising through the world everywhere, bursting out at
every cranny and crevice; as in spring the power of the
green earth bursts up even through the crevices of the
London paving-stones, through the black branches of the
trees in deserted old squares, through the flower in the
broken pot in the sick child's window, making every
wretched corner of the city glad with some poor tree
or blossom, or plot of grass of its iown. But the dead
tree, alas! crackles in the wind,-the life-bringing spring
wind,-and wonders what all this stir and twittering is
about, and moans drily that it is the longest winter the
world ever saw, and that it will never be spring again.
"As I did once, and for so long!" But we have come, have we not, to the Fountain of
Life, and this tide of life is not around us only, it is within
us, and sometimes the joy is so great it seems quite too
great to bear alone!
"And then especially I long for you, Kitty, and my
thoughts buzz about you like bees around flowers in the
sunshine. If you feel a pleasant little stir about your
heart at any time, that is what it is!
"And where will you read this? In your sunny chamber alone, with the rooks cawing in your old elms, and
the light flickering through their branches on your floor?




1 88             TIE DIARY'OP
Or in Aunt Trevlyan's closet, sitting at her feet, while'Bishop Taylor' lies open on the little table beside her?
Or by the hall fire, while Uncle Trevylyan is reading for
the hundreth time that book on fortifications, soothed to
occasional dozes by the drone of your mother's spinningwheel, and Jack is mending his fishing-tackle, and Trusty
now and then heaves a long sigh in his sleep, and
stretches himself into a posture of more absolute
repose?
"I should like to see it all one day, Kitty, and I must,
if only to tell Aunt Trevylyan all you have been to your
loving cousin               EVELYN BEAUCHAMP.
"P. S.-Mamma and I are so much together now, Kitty.
I read to her hours together, sometimes French romances
and sometimes the'Ladies' Magazine of Fashion.' They
are a little dull, but they have one great merit, they imprison my thoughts as little as embroidery. But every
morning, before she gets up, I read the Bible to her; and
the other day, when I was a little later than usual, she
pointed to her watch, and said in a disappointed tone,"'You are late Evelyn, we shall scarcely have any
time;' and this very morning she said,"'I shall be glad when Lent comes. I am tired of
seeing so many people, and you and I, child, shall have
more time for each other then.'
"And then she looked just as she did on that night in
the old nursery at Beauchamp Manor, when she was
watching by Harry's sick-bed and mine.




MRS. KITTY TREVYLY-AiM.           189
"Second P. S.-Cousin Tom is as savage as he can be
to me. But he always contrives to ask for you, although
he snatches at any news of you like a chained bear at
a biscuit, and then shuffles off growling."
Cousin Evelyn and Hugh Spencer seem to be very intimate. That is quite natural. They must like each other.
They are so suited. Nothing petty about either of them.
Evelyn is just the kind of woman I used to think would
understand him, so frank, and fearless, and truthful, and
generous, and full of thoughts of her own; so selfpossessed and ready-witted; so different from me. And
she is sure to like Hugh. Every one must who knows
him. And she said the first time she sawv him, she felt
he was just a man she could trust.
But they do seem to have become such great friends
very quickly I
Already they appear to have secrets she does not
tell me.
I wonder what the "subject (or object)" was which
she does not mention, in which they are both.so equally
interested.
When I read Evelyn's letter to Mother, she said," She seems much delighted with the Methodists, Kitty.
It seems to me a little dangerous for so young a woman
to have such strong opinions. And I do not quite like
her comparing her great-uncle to a dead tree in a London square  It does not seem respectful or kind. I am




190              THE DIARY OF
afraid she has learned that from the Methodists. I do
not like young people to judge their elders in that way.
But, poor child, she seems to have had her own way too
much, and she is affectionate, and so fond of you, Kitty.
I am glad you love each other. Kitty, I am afraid you
must have tried her patience sorel/ with your long stories
of your home. She seems to know all about us. But I
am very much afraid of those Methodists. I cannot think
what we want of a new religion. St. Paul says, though
an angel from heaven were to preach another gospel to
us, we must not listen to him. What has Mr. Wesley to
say that the Bible and the Prayer Book do not say,and Thomas a Kempis and Bishop Tayl6r? Betty went
to hear the Methodists, and since then, for the first time
in her life, she has twice spoilt the Sunday's dinner in
cooking it.  Evelyn perhaps has learned some-good
things from these people, but my Kitty will not want any
other religion than that she has learned from her childhood,-in her Bible, and from the Church, and in this
little closet from her Mother's lips. Only more of it,
Kitty! —nmre faith, and hope, and charity, more than I
have ever had, or perhaps can hope to have, more, but
not something else."
I could only assure Mother what I feel so deeply, that
I could never wish for anything but to grow year by
year more like what she is.
Yet when I think of it here alone, it does seem to me
as if things needed to be said over again in a new way
to each new generation, just as every spring has new




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.              191
songs and new blossoms. And even more than that,
because birds do sing the same songs, and yet they are
always fresh. But men's works and words seem to grow
old-fashioned unless they are varied; until, as Evelyn
says, they grow again into a kind of fresh youth when
they pass from being antiquated to being antique.
The Bible is indeed always fresh, always new, as the
songs of the birds, as the spring flowers, as the breaking
of the waves, as the hearts of children, as the young man
in a shining garment at the sepulchre, who must have
" sung for joy" thousands of years before, at the birthday
of the world.
But it does seem as if God meant His Gospel to be
borne on from age to age by voices, not by books, not in
faint echoes from the tombs, but in fresh, living words
from heart to heart.
Certainly Betty understands Mr. Wesley and John
Wilson, as she never could understand Thomas a Kempis
and Bishop Taylor. I must ask Mother next Sunday
about this. Mother will be sure to know better than
I can.




VI.
HE song-birds, for the most part, have outlived their days of song, and are quietly
chirping advice to their nestlings in a sober
and practical way. Only the rooks, who seem to carry
on their attachments in a very business-like style, as if
they were always discussing the " settlements" and " pinmoney" Evelyn used to laugh about, make as much noise
as ever. The old rooks are cawing instructions to the
young ones, and the young ones seem to discuss these
instructions in rather a seditious spirit among themnselves.
No doubt the young rooks think they are encountering quite newly-discovered difficulties with the most
original arguments, although precisely the same discussions have been carried on every season in precisely the
same tones for centuries, ever since rooks were.
I wonder if the cavillings and controversies of our
times, which seem so modern and new to us, would sound
just as monotonous to any one who had lived through
seventeen generations of men, as I have of rooks I
The grave autumn winds are sweeping in slow and
(192)




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN!. 193
solemn cadences, like the throb of a dead-march, through
the fading leaves of the elms; as a musician might draw
a low, lingering farewell from his harp, before he laid it
aside for a season of mourning. For the winds often
seem to me to mourn over the wild work they have to
do, sighing and sobbing through the woods they are
laying bare, and passionately wailing above the waves
they are lashing into fury. "We were not made for
this," they seem to moan. "Of old we bore not death,
but life on our wings.  When will it be so again?
When shall we rest? When will the earth rest and be
quiet? When will all the mournful work be done, and
only the good be left to do?"
Hugh Spencer used to say, how thankful we should be
that the part of God's work given us to do on earth is
not the avenging and destroying, but the healing and
the helping.
How many things I have learned from him.. I suppose he will never be here much again. The work to
be done in the world seems to press on him so much, and
there are so few to do it; and his heart is so warm and
large, he is able to do so much more than most other
people. Cousin Evelyn feels what he is!
And yet this parish is like a world in itself, he used
to say; and his is just the character that grows dearer
to people the longer they know him, and it seems almost
a pity to throw away the love old and young have for
him in his father's parish. There are other people who
could preach to the multitudes throughout the world.




194              THE DIARY OF
But it does seem as if no one could do what he might
for the people here.
I wonder what the " subject (or object)" is Evelyn and
he are " equally interested in," that she does not tell me!
Hugh used to tell me all his wishes and purposes.
But Evelyn is so much more capable of entering into
them than I ever was, and of helping him to carry them
out, with her rapid ready wit; so different from me, who
so often think of the right thing to say just when it is
too late. And perhaps I disappointed him when he
spoke to me that evening on the sea, of his feeling called
to proclaim the gospel through the world, when that
selfish sadness came over me, at the thought of his no
more belonging to us all at home, but to the wide world.
Perhaps he feels I cannot enter into his great, benevolent
plans. And, of course, I never can, as Evelyn could.
She knows so much more, and thinks so much more.
Beside Evelyn's, my thoughts and feelings seem so faint
and weak: like a little flute beside a clear, ringing
clarion. Yes, Evelyn seems just made to understand
and help Hugh Spencer. One day, perhaps, they will
tell me what this great "subject (or object)" is. And
I must not be selfish again, then, but must try to enter
into it with all my heart; for it is sure to be something
generous and good.
Jack has got his commission at last. He is wild with
delight, and patronizes us all, and bestows imaginary
fortunes on every one in the parish, on the strength of




MRS. KITTY TRE YLYAN.             195
the cities he means to take, and the prize-money he
means to win.
Father seems to live over his youth again, as he talks
to Jack of the perils and adventures before him; and
although he warns him that the days of victory are
few and the nights of watching many, and the days of
marching long, yet the old martial enthusiasm that comes
over him as he fights Marlborough's battles over again,
certainly has more power to enkindle Jack's ardour, than
the sober commentaries at the end have to cool it.
It is pleasant, however, to see how cordial Father and
Jack become over the old book of " Fortifications," and
in their endless discussions concerning arms and accoutrements.
Meanwhile Mother and I rise early and sit up late
to complete Jack's outfit. And many tears Mother lets
fall on the long seams and hems-although I am sure it
is easier for us both, than if we were rich, and could pay
some one else to do the work, while we sat brooding
over the parting. It is a comfort to put our whole
hearts into every stitch we do for him; to feel that no
money could ever purchase the delicate stitching and
the elaborate button-holes, and the close, strong sewing
we delight to make as perfect as possible. Mother sews
her tender anxieties into every needleful, and certainly
relieves her anxieties as she does so. And I sew all
sorts of mingled feelings in, besides; repentance for
every sharp word I ever spoke to Jack, and every hard
thought I ever had of his little mistakes, and plans of




196              THE DIARY OF
my own for his comfort. For the bees, and the three
Spanish hens, whose honey and eggs constitute my " pinmoney," have been very successful lately; and I can
very well, with a little contrivance, make my woolsey
dress last one more winter; so that I shall have quite a
nice little sum for Jack.
Father seems to feel as if he were going forth again
to the wars and adventures of his youth in Jack's person.
But to Mother it is not a goingforth, but a going away.
She shudders as Father goes over his battles on the
table after supper, with the bread and cheese for fortresses, and the plates and salt-cellars for the armies,
and talks of "massing forces," and "cutting up detachments in detail."
"My dear," she said one day, "you talk so coolly of
masses and forces, and of'cutting them up' You seem
to forget it is men you are talking of, and that our Jack
is to be one of them."
Father smiled compassionately, and went on detaching his salt-cellars.  Jack laughed, and kissed
Mother affectionately, and said, " But I am not to be one
of them, Mother. I have no intention of letting any one
cut me up."
But Mother could not hear any more military discussions just then; and we took a candle to a little table
near the fire, and comforted ourselves once more with
Jack's outfit.
I suppose that it is meant that men must leave us one
day, and go forth into the world to do their work.




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             197
But it does seem a little hard they should be so glad
to go.
Yet when I said this one day to Mother, she said, " 1
would not have Jack one bit less eager and pleased, on
any account, Kitty! What are women for, unless they
can help men in the rough things they have to do and
bear? They work and fight hard for us, and if we have
our own share of the burden to bear at home, the least
we can do is to bear it cheerfully, and not hinder them
with repining looks and words."
"Only, Mother," I said, "it seems wronging the old
happy days to part with them so easily."
"The old happy childish days are gone, Kitty!" she
said. "Men cannot sit down on the march of life, gazing
with lingering looks on the way behind them. And women should not; Christian women ought not, Kitty," she
added softly. "You know we also have something to
press forward to. Our eyes should chiefly there be fixed
whither our feet are going."
Dear Mother," I said, "if one were only sure that
this step forward would be a step really onward for
Jack! There are so many dangers in the army, are there
not?"
"What makes you so desponding, Kitty?" bhe said.
"It is not like you; and it seems as'if you had too little
confidence in Jack. We must not sit and wail together
over possible evils. When such anxieties come, we must
separate and pray.  I know no other remedy, my
child."
9




198              TIIE DIARY OF
And I could not find it in my heart to tell her my peculiar anxieties about Jack.  Besides, it would have
seemed ungenerous to him.
Jack is gone. Now he is really off, and silence has
settled down on the house after all the bustle. Father's
apprehensions seem to over-balance his hopes. He roams
restlessly in and out of the house, and then sits down to
his " Fortifications," and after reading a few words, shuts
the book and pushes it impatiently aside, and walks carelessly up and down, or stands whistling at the window,
or goes to the door and looks at the weather, and wonders how that poor boy is getting on at sea.
And Trusty, feeling there is something wrong, goes to
the door also, and also looks out at the weather, and also
wonders, and wags his tail in an indecisive, meditative
way, and returning to the fire, sits bolt upright before it
in a cramped attitude, staring vacantly at the flames, and
saying, as plainly as a dog can, that he can make nothing
of it.
Mother, on the other hand, makes frequent visits to
the little chamber over the porch, and comes down pale
and serene, and with some little cheery observation
changes the current of Father's thoughts, or reminds him
of some work about the farm.
Then Trusty feels that it is all right again, and
stretches himself out in his easiest attitude on the hearth
at her feet, and sighs, and composes himself to sleep.




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.            199
I wish I could feel as if it was all right. But there
are things about Jack which do make me uneasy.
The day before he left, I went up to him as he was
packing in his own room, and slipped the little packet
containing two guineas into his hand. I felt anxious he
should not think it was any sacrifice to me, so I said,
" The bees and those Spanish hens you reared for me,
Jack, have brought me quite a fortune this year; and
besides, I had something left from Uncle Henderson's
present, and there is no way of spending money here
if one wished it; —and you will want so many things."
I was going hastily down again, to avoid burdening
him with thanks, when he came after me, and replacing
the money in my hand, said, laughing, " Indeed, my good
little sister, I cannot rob you of your frugal earnings.
Hugh Spencer is a good fellow, after all, at bottom. I
wrote to ask him for the loan of a few pounds, and he
has sent me ten. I mean to pay him with my first prize
money., The pay is barely enough for a gentleman to
live on.  And besides," he added, "that good, cantankerous old Betty has actually insisted on presenting
me with five guineas. I quite hesitated to take it from
her. But she said it had all been earned in our service; and'Master's son must look like a Trevylyan; and
what use had she for money? She was a fool ever to
have hoarded it!' So that at last I actually had to
take it from the dear old soul, to spare her feelings,
and to show her that I bore no malice for the quarrels
of my boyhood. So that you see, Kitty, with such a




z20              THE DIAR I OF
purse it would be mean to accept anything more from
you."
Then seeing me, I suppose, look perplexed and grave,
he took the packet again from my hand, and opening it,
withdrew one guinea, and gave me back the other with
the air of a benefactor, saying, " There, my poor little
Kitty, I will not disappoint you. I will keep one for
kindness' sake, and to buy you a fairing with. And you
can keep the other to pay Hugh Spencer for your cherrycoloured bow, if you' like; or any other little bill," he
added, "which may have escaped my memory, and which
might vex father."
And Jack returned to his packing, persuaded he had
done at once a very liberal and a very conscientious thing.
But I could have sunk into the earth with vexation and
shame. To have written to borrow money from Hugh;
to have accepted Betty's hard-earned savings; what
would he do next?   And then those terrible words,
" any other little bill," burnt into my heart like a drop of
burning acid.
I stood irresolute.
lie turned to me with his good-humoured, easy smile,
and said, "What is it, Kitty? Can I do anything else to
oblige you?"
"Oh, Jack," I said, summoning all my courage, for I
dreaded very much to grieve him on that last day,
"would you mind telling me if you have any idea to
whom you owe those other little bills?"
" My dear child," he said, "how can I remember in




MJRS. KITTY TREVTLYAN             201
all this bustle? Nothing but trifles, of course. Let me
see; there wei e a pair of shoe-buckles I saw the last
time I was in Falmouth, at Moses the Jew's, the newest
fashion, in excellent taste, I assure you, just such as I
know Father would like to see me in. Yet just the
kind of trifle I would not trouble him with. But that
would not matter much; Moses is a rich man, and may
wait-only Jews don't like to wait. I care more about
Miss Pawsey; she lent me half-a-guinea a few weeks
since, when I had to treat some fellows to a glass in
honour of my obtaining my commission. Yes; I should
like you to pay Miss Pawsey, Kitty. And if there is anything else, no doubt, the people will let you know in time.
I told them never to apply to Father; so that if any
one should come at any time asking particularly for me,
you will know what it means, and can settle it at once
without mentioning it to Father or Mother. It might vex
them. -But I am glad I thought of telling you, because,
of course, I could not write about these things; and
now my mind is quite easy."
And the next morning, as Jack was riding with
Father, he reined in his horse, and turning back, took
off his military hat to me with a low bow, and beckoned
me to him, and said softly as I stood close to him:
" Don't cry your roses away, Kitty, till I come back
from Flanders, and you all have to come to Court to see
me knighted. With the first good fortune I have I will
send Hugh Spencer his money, unless he is a bishop
first, in which case, of course, he would not need it; and




202              THE DIARY OF
with the next I will buy an annuity for Betty, on which
she will be able to live like a duchess. You see I shall
make all your fortui.es, and you will all of you have
reason to rejoice in having befriended the hero in his
adversity; and it will be as good as a fairy tale."
So he rode away aid rejoined Father, and I went back
to Mother.
" What did he say to you, Kitty?" she asked. "Is
anything forgotten?"
" He said we should all have to come to Court to see
him knighted, and that he would make all our fortunes,"
I said, " and that it would be as good as a fairy tale."
" Poor fellow!" she said, the tears, so long repressed,
flowing freely, as her heart was touched with this proof
of Jack's generous intentions. "Poor fellow I He was
always so sanguine, and so full of generous plans."
But I could not shed a tear. I stood and felt like a
stone.  The weight of Jack's secrets seemed to press
my heart into marble. And I felt like a traitor to be
making Mother glad, when, if I had told her all, I was
sure she would feel as I did.
But what am I to do? The guinea will pay Miss
Pawsey, of course, and, perhaps, the Jew, if I could see
him.  But I am so grieved about Betty and Hugh
Spencer. How in all my life shall I ever be able to
repay them? And they must be paid. I would work
day and night, if I could tell how to earn anything to
pay them with. But fifteen guineas I It is a fortune I
How could I earn a guinea without Mother's knowing?




MRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN.            203
And would it even be true to Father and Mother to do
this if I could?
Evelyn could help me. But I could not ask her with.
out betraying Jack.
And how shall I ever feel safe from some one coming
and " particularly wanting to see" Jack?
Ought not Father and Mother to know?
And yet would it not almost break Mother's heart?
I cannot tell her yet, at least, until the sorrow of this
parting is a little healed. For this is a sorrow which
seems to me as if it could never be healed. It is not
the money, or the debts, or the difficulty of meeting them.
It is Jack himself that is the sorrow. What will he
do next?
I cannot bear this alone. Whatever the trouble may
be, it is clear God cannot mean it to make me untruthful.
He cannot mean it to make me do wrong. Therefore,
there must be some way out of it, some one right way.
And God knows it. I will ask Him, and He will surely
help me also to find it, and to take it when I find it, however rough and dark it may be.
Aunt Jeanie said we must not look to see more than
the next step. But that we must look to see, as sure as
God is true, and has promised to lead us.
Yesterday evening, to my great surprise, Betty came
into my room after I was in bed, looking wild and haggard, and she said,"Mrs. Kitty, my dear, I can bear it Ino longer. What



204              THE DIARY OF
ever comes of it, I must go and hear that Yorkshireman
again. He is to preach at six o'clock to-morrow morning
on the Down above the house. I shall be back again
before Missis wants me, for it won't last more than an
hour. And if she is angered, she must be angered. I
can get no rest night nor day. The words that man spoke
are like a fire in my bones; and hear him again I must.
I can but perish either way. And if I must perish, I had
rather know it."
She went back to h'er room: But I could not sleep
for thinking of her wan wild face. It haunted me like
the vision of some one murdered. And I felt as if it
would be hardly safe to let her go alone.
Accordingly, when Betty crept through my room the
next morning very softly, that she might not wake me,
I was already dressed, and, in spite of her remonstrances,
insisted on accompanying her.
The appointed place of meeting was in a slight hollow
on the top of the Down. We were early, and as we
sat down on a tuft of withered grass, closely wrapped
in our hoods and cloaks, waiting for the preaching to
begin, I thought I had never been in a. place more like
a temple.  The solemn dawn was coming up in the
east; and I always think nothing is so solemn as the
coming up of the morning. There is a pomp about the
sunset blending with its tender lingering tints; and
night is majestic with its crown of countless stars; but
nothing ever seems to me so grand and solemn as the slow,
silent spreading of the dawn over the sleeping world.




MRS. KITTY'TREVYLYAN.            205
There was little colour yet, only that steady welling up
of the light from its deep hidden fountain, overflowing
all the sky; the great tide of sunlight rising without
effort, without conflict, without recoil, scarcely seeming
to advance, yet ceaselessly advancing, and never losing
one point won; till the clouds from mysterious indefinite billows of mist became defined purple bars, through
which we gazed into the depths of golden radiance behind; and the moon paled from a pearly lamp, illuminating the dark, to a silver crescent floating on a silvery
sea, and at length sank with her stars into the flood of
sunlight; and the sky had become full of light, and the
earth full of colour and life. Then there were the soft
twitterings of the waking birds in the Wood below us,
and the murmurs of the waves far off and far below, and
the sweeping of the winds over the long ranges of the
dewy moors.
It seemed to me I wanted no other preaching, or
music. But the silent solemnity of the dawn, and the
murmhrs of the great sea, and the songs of birds, have
no power to lift the burden from the troubled conscience.
That work is committed not to angels, nor to nature
(as Hugh Spencer used to say), but to poor blundering
sinful human beings, who have felt what the burden is.
John Nelson was there already. He stood earnestly
conversing with a little group of men; and I watched
the frank, trustworthy face, and the tall stalworth form,
with no little interest, remembering how he had been
thrown down, and trampled on, and bruised, and beaten




206               THE DIARY OF
by the mobs for Christ sake, and had dared the same
rough usage again and again to tell them the same message of mercy.
At length the congregation began to assemble. Solitary figures creeping up from the farms and lone cottages
around, miners in their working clothes on their way to
the mines, labourers on their way to the fields, and from
the nearer villages little bands of poorly clad women
and children.
In a few minutes about two hundred had ranged themselves around the preacher, who stood on a hillock, his
tall figure and strong clear voice commanding the little
congregation, so that he spoke easily, more as if conversing privately than preaching.'He said he would
give us some of his experience, as it might be of use in
comforting any who were in trouble.
"I was brought up," he said, "a mason, as was my
father before me.*
" When I was between nine and ten years old, I was
horribly terrified with the thoughts of death and judgment whenever I was alone. One Sunday night, as I sat
on the ground by the side of my father's chair, while
he was reading the twentieth chapter of Revelation,
the Word came with such light and power to my soul
that it made me tremble, as if a dart was shot at my
heart. I fell with my face on the floor, and wept till the
place was as wet where I lay as if water had been
poured thereon. As my father proceeded, I thought I saw
* John Nelson s A:tobiography.




MAIS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.            207
everything he read about, though my eyes were shut.
And the sight was so terrible I was about to stop my
ears that I might not hear, but I durst not. When he
came to the eleventh verse my flesh seemed to creep on
my bones while he said,'And I saw a great white
throne, and him that sat thereon, from  whose face the
heavens and the earth fled away; and there was found
no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great,
stand before God: and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the
dead were judged out of those things that were written in
the books, according to their works.' Oh, what a scene
was opened to my mind I It was as if I had seen the
Lord Jesus Christ sitting on his throne with the twelve
apostles below him; and a large book open at his left
hand; and, as it were, a bar fixed about ten paces from the
throne, to which the children of Adam came up; and
every one, as he approached, opened his breast as quick
as a man could open the bosom of his shirt. On one
leaf of the book was written the character of the children of God; and on the other, the character of those
that should not enter into the kingdom of heaven. I
thought neither the Lord nor the apostles said anything;
but every soul as he came up to the bar compared his conscience with the book, and went away to his own place,
either singing, or else crying and howling. Those that
went to the right hand were but like the stream of
a small brook; but the others were like the flowing of
a mighty river.




2o8              THE DIARY OF
" God has followed me with convictions ever since
I was ten years old; and whenever I committed any
known sin against God or man, I used to be so terrified
afterwards that I shed many tears in private; yet, when
I came to my companions, I wiped my face, and went on
again in sin and folly. But oh, the hell I found in my
mind when I came to be alone again I and what resolutions I made. Nevertheless, when temptations came, my
resolutions were as a thread of tow that had touched the
fire.
" When I was turned sixteen my father was taken ill,
which I thought was for my wickedness; yet at that
time, vile as I was, I prayed earnestly that God would
spare him for the sake of my mother and the young
children, and let me die in his stead; but the Lord
would not regard my prayer. Three days before he
died, he said to my mother,'Trouble not thyself for me;
for I know that my peace is made with God, and he will
provide for thee and the children.' I was greatly surprised at this, wondering how he could know his peace
was made with God.
" In one of my times of trouble I was in a stable, and
falling into a slumber, I dreamt I prayed that God would
make me happy. But I thought, what will make me
happy? I also dreamt that I beheld Jeremiah the prophet standing on a large rock at the west gate of Jerusalem. His countenance was grave, and -with great
authority he reproved the elders and magistrates of the
city; for which they were enraged, and pulling him




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.            209
down, cast him on a dunghill, where the butchers poured
the blood of their slain beasts. And I imagined I saw
them tread him under feet; but his countenance never
changed, nor did he cease to cry out,'Thus saith the
Lord, If ye will not repent, and give glory to my name,
I will bring destruction on you and your city.' He
seemed so composed and happy while they were treading
him under their feet, that I said in my dream,'0 God,
make me like Jeremiah.' And since then, thou Lord, in
a small measure, hast given me a taste of his cup."
Then (he said) he prayed God to give him a good
wife; but although God gave him the most suitable
wife he believed he could have had, after his marriage
he loved pleasures more than God. Yet his pleasures
were not happiness; and after a day of successful hunting or shooting, he felt so unhappy that he was ready to
break his gun in pieces. His conscience had found no
rest. He went from home to seek work, and prayed for
guidance, and the Lord blessed him in all his journey.
He got into business the day he arrived in London. But
the burden of sin still weighed on his heart. Forty
times a day he would cry for mercy. After his day's
work he sat alone, and read and prayed. He would not
drink with his mates. They cursed and abused him,
and he bore many insults from them without opening
his mouth to answer. But when they took his tools
from him, and said, if he would not drink he should not
work while they were drinking, that provoked him, so
that he fought with several. Then they let him alone;




Z0o              THE DIARY OF
but that stifled for the time his concern for his salvation,
and he left off reading and prayer, in a great measure.
Then sickness came, and with it a horrible dread, not
of death, but of the judgment that should follow. He
recovered, and was restored to perfect health.  But
again his conscience was awake: he could not rest night
nor day. All things prospered that he pursued, yet he
felt that he had something to learn that he had not yet
learned; "He knew not," he said, " that it was the great
lesson of love to God ana man."
He began to consider what he wanted to make him
happy, for as yet he was as a man in a barren wilderness that could find no way out. Health as good as any
man's; as good a wife as he could wish for; more gold
and silver than he needed, yet no rest. He cried out to
himself, " Oh, that I had been a cow or a sheep!" He
thought he would choose strangling, rather than thirty
years more of such a life. But then came again the
terrible thought of the judgment. And he cried, " Oh,
that I had never been born!" for he thought his day of
grace was over, because he had made so many resolutions
and broken them all.
"Yet," he continued, " I thought I would set out once
more; for I said, Surely God never made man to be such a
riddle to himself and to leave him so; there must be
something in religion, that I am unacquainted with, to
satisfy the empty mind of man, or he is in a worse state
than the beasts that perish."
(As John Nelson spoke these words, Betty's downcast




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.            211
head was raised, her hood fell back, and from that moment she never took her eyes from off his face.)
"In all these troubles," he continued, "I had no one to
open my mind to; I wandered up and down in the fields,
thinking; I went from church to church, but found no
ease. One minister at St. Paul's preached about a man
doing his duty to God and his neighbour, and on his
death-bed finding joy in his heart from looking back to
his well-spent life. Oh what a stab that sermon was to
my wounded soul I for I looked back and could not see
one day in my life in which I had not left undone something I ought to have done, or done something I ought
not to have done.
"Afterwards I heard another sermon, wherein the
preacher said, that man, since the fall, could not perfectly fulfil the will of his Maker; but God required him
to do all he could, and Christ would make up the rest;
but if man did not do all he could he nist unavoidably
perish; for he had no right to expect any interest in
the merits of Christ, if he had not fulfilled his part, and
done all that lay in his power. Then, thought I, every
soul must be damned; for I did not believe that any
who had lived to years of maturity had done all they
could, and avoided all the evil they might. Oh what
deadly physic was that doctrine to my poor sin-sick
soul!"
Then he tried Dissenters of various denominations,
Roman Catholics, Quakers, all but the Jews. To the
Quakers he listened three months, because among them




212              THE DIARY OF
he heard one who seemed to describe the disease of his
soul; but, alas! he showed no remedy.
"In the spring," he said, " Mr. Whitefield came to
Moorfields, and I went to hear him; he was to me as
a man that could play well on an instrument, for his
preaching was pleasant to me; and I loved the man, so
that if any one offered to disturb him'I was ready to
fight him."
But the deliverance did not come through Mr. Whitefield, although (he said); " I got some hope of mercy, so
that I was encouraged to pray and read the Scriptures.
But I was like a wandering bird cast out of the nest,
until Mr. John Wesley came to preach his first sermon
in Moorfields. Oh, that was a blessed morning to my
soul! As soon as he got upon the stand, he stroked back
his hair, and turned his face towards where I stood, and
I thought fixed his eyes on me. His countenance struck
such an awful dread upon me before I heard him speak,
it made my heart beat like a pendulum, and when he did
speak I thought his whole discourse was aimed at me.'
(Betty bowed her head with a little assenting moan,
and murmured, "And so, sure, it was! Just like him.")
When he had done, I said: "This man can tell the
secrets of my heart. He hath not left me there, for he
hath showed the remedy, even the blood of Jesus. Then
was my soul filled with consolation, through hope that
God for Christ's sake would save me."
Still the conflict was not over; his besetting sin, a
hasty temper, got the better of him, and his heart again




JRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN.            213
felt as hard as a rock. He felt unworthy to eat and
drink. " Should such a wretch as he devour the good
creatures of God?"  He resolved neither to eat nor
drink, till he found the kingdom of God. He wept tears
like great drops of rain, he kneeled before the Lord, yet
he felt dumb as a beast, and could not put up one petition; he saw himself a criminal before the Judge, and
said in his overwhelming sense of guilt, surrendering
himself as a condemned malefactor body and soul to
God, " Lord, thy will be done; damn or save."
"That moment," he said, " Jesus Christ was evidently
set before the eye of my mind, as crucified for my sins,
as if I had seen him with my bodily eyes; and in that
instant I was set at liberty from every tormenting fear,
and filled with a calm and serene peace. I could then
say without any dread or fear,' Thou art my Lord and
my God.' Now did I begin to say,'0 Lord, I will
praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine
anger is turned away, and thou comfortest me. Behold,
God is my salvation: I will trust and not be afraid: for
the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song. He also
is become my salvation.' My heart was filled with love
to God, and every soul of man; next to my wife and
children, my mother, brothers, sisters, my greatest enemies
had an interest in my prayers, and I cried,' 0 Lord
give me to see my desire on them; let them experience
Thy redeeming love.'
" In the afternoon, I opened the Book where it is said,'Unto Hjm that loved us, and washed us from our sins in




~ 14-            THE DIABY OF
His own blood,' with which I was so affected, that I could
not read for weeping.  That evening, under Mr. Wesley's sermon, I could do nothing but weep, and love, and
praise God for sending His servant into the fields to
show me the way of salvation. All that day I neither
ate nor drank anything; for before I found peace the
hand of God was so heavy on me that I refused to eat;
and after I had found peace, I was so filled with the
manna of redeeming love, that I had no need of the
bread that perisheth, for that season."
The preacher went on, but I heard no more, for Betty
was sitting with hands clasped, the tears raining over
her rugged face, yet with such an expression of hope on
it, that I felt I could safely leave her; so I told her to
stay, I would see to her work, and put everything right
by the time she came back.
As I went down the hill, the sound of the hymn followed me, at first faint and broken, but soon rising
strong and clear through the morning air. I thought
I had never heard pleasanter music; and as I lighted
the fire and got the breakfast ready, my heart sang, and
I prayed that there might be melody also in poor Betty's
heart.
She came back before any one had missed her.
All day she went about her work as usual; her face
looked more peaceful, but she said nothing, and Betty's
silences were barriers no one but herself could safely
attempt to break down.
In the evening, while Mother and I were sitting by




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN..21
the fire alone, and I preparing to confess to her my having accompanied Betty to the morning preaching, Betty
appeared with the supper, and after lingering about
the things until I thought she would not go till Father
came back, and f should be left for the night with the
burden of my morning expedition unconfessed, suddenly
she stood still and said," Missis, I may as well out with it at once. I am going
to hear that Yorkshireman again to-morrow. It's no good
fighting against it. I have tried, but I shall have to go."
I had to fill up the vacancies in Betty's narrative, as
clearly as I could, hastily confessing my share in it.
Mother looked seriously grieved.
" Kitty," she said, " I did not expect this of you."
" Mrs. Kitty went to take care of me," interposed Betty.
"She thought I was going mazed-and so I was, sureand Mrs. Kitty went to keep me from mischief."
"Betty," said Mother, very gravely, "I cannot sanction your going to any such places. You know I never
hinder your going to church as often as you like, and I am
sure Parson Spencer is a very good man; and there are
the lessons and the prayers. What can you want more?"
" I am not saying anything against our parson, Missis,"
said Betty; " I'd as lief say anything against the King
and the Parliament. I've no doubt that what he says is all
right in its way. But ever since I heard Parson Wesley,
I've had a great thorn fretting and rankling in my heart,
and our parson's sermons can no more take that out, than
they could take a rotten tooth out of my head. It isn't




216               THE DIARY OF
to be expected they should; they're not made for such
rough doctor's work.  But that Yorkshireman's can.
He made me feel better this morning and I must hear
him again. And then, Missis, when I've got rid of the
burden on my heart, I can sit easy and hearken to
Parson Spencer. For no doubt his discourses are uncommon fine. I'd as lief listen to him as to the finest music
I ever heard.  Only it's not to be expected that the
finest music'11 stop a sore heart from aching."
"But the Bible is made for that," said Mother; "and
you hear that every Sunday in church."
"Yes, sure, and so I do from the Yorkshireman; but
he has a way of picking'out the bits that suit you, picking them out and laying them on, as'you did the herblotion, Missis, last week when I bruised my side. The
herbs were in the garden before, sure enough, but I
might have walked among them till doomsday, and my
side been no better."
Mother sighed.
" Take care, Betty," she said, "that you do not pick
out the texts you like, instead of those that really suit
you. Bitters," sighed Mother; " are better than sweets,
often."
"And bitter enough they were to me," said Betty; " it's
my belief it is the smart that did me the good."
" Well, Betty," said Mother, " I cannot sanction it."
"Bless your heart, Missis," said Betty, " of course you
can't. I never thought you could. But I thought it my
duty to tell you beforeiI went."




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.            217
Mother shook her head, and Betty went; for beyond
this right of mutual protest our domestic government
with regard to her does not extend.
Betty went, and returned, and said nothing. Nor did
she give occasion to Mother to say anything. The cooking was blameless, the floors spotless, Father's meals
punctual to a minute. Only there was an unusual quiet
in the kitchen, and on Saturday old Roger said to me
privately," I can't think what's come over Betty, Mrs. Kitty.
She's so cruel kind I and as quiet as a lamb. She hasn't
given me a sharp word for nigh a week, and I can't say
what'll come of it. It makes me quite wisht. They say
folks with Betty's tempers fall into that way when they're
like to die. And in the evening she sits and spells over
the great Bible you brought her from London. It's quite
unnatural, Mrs. Kitty; I didn't like to tell Missis, for
fear she should take on about it, she's so tenderhearted; but I couldn't help telling you. The Methodists
be terrible folk; they say in my country up to Dartmoor
that they know more than they ought to know, and I
shouldn't like them to ill-wish Betty. I used to think
her tongue was a trifle sharp by times, but the place is
cruel wisht without it and mortal lonesome; and I'd give
somewhat to hear her fling out with a will once more,
poor soul."
Every other Sunday afternoon has always been one




z18              THE DIARY OF
of my most delightful times. There is no service then
in our parish church. The vicar rides to a daughterchurch some miles off, too far for us to reach, and we
have the whole afternoon for quiet. Father and Jackused commonly to walk round the farm with Trusty,
Mother sits alone in the porch-closet, and I spend the
time alone in my own chamber, or in the old apple-tree
in the garden.
Last Sunday afternoon I was sitting, as usual, at my
chamber window. The casement was open, and it was so
still that the hum of the few stray bees buzzing in the
sunshine around the marigolds in the garden below, came
up to me quite clearly. But the bees were evidently
only doing a little holiday work quite at their leisure.
I almost fancied I could hear the waving of the grass
on the hill-side, as it bent before the quiet breeze; and
I could hear distinctly the crunching of the grass which
Daisy was cropping in the Home-park. And below all
these intermittent sounds went on the quiet, unintermittent flow of the little runnel through the stone channel into the trough where the cattle were watered.
The spring was over with its songs and nest-buildings, the summer with its power of ripening sunshine,
the harvest with its anxieties and its merry-makings.
The sun had nothing more to do but to smile from his
depths of golden light on his finished sheaves and ripened
fruit.
The earth, too, had done her work for the year, and
was couching at rest, and quiet, like the labouring oxen




MRIS. KITTY TsREVYL YAN.          219
in the streak of golden sunshine at the top of the field
opposite my window.
There was a ripe calm, and a sacred stillness over
everything, which made me feel as if I knew what the
Bible meant by the "shadow of the wings" of God. For
where "shadow" and "God" are spoken of together,
shadow cannot mean shade and darkness, but only
shelter, and safety, and repose. It seemed as if the
whole earth were nestling under great, warm, motherly
wings.
My Bible lay open on my knee, but I had not been
reading for some time.  I had not consciously been
thinking or even praying, my whole heart resting silently
in the presence of God, as the earth around me lay silent
in the sunshine: conscious of His presence as the dumb
creatures are conscious of the sunshine, as a babe is
conscious of its mother's smile, neither listening, nor
adoring, nor entreating, nor remembering, nor hoping,
hut simply at rest in God's love.
It seemed like waking, when a low murmur below my
window recalled me again to thought.
It was the broken murmur of a woman's voice. The
room immediately under mine was the kitchen, and as
I leant out of the window and listened, I perceived that
the voice was Betty's.
I went down stairs into the court, and as I passed the
kitchen window, I saw Betty sitting there with her large
new Bible open before her on the white deal table.
It was a long window with several stone mullions,




220               TEE D1ARY OF
and casements broken into diamonded panes. The casement at which Betty sat was open. The cat was perched
on the sunny sill, and Trusty was coiled up on the grassgrown pavement beneath.
Betty was bending eagerly over the book; the plump
fingers she was accustomed to rely on in so many useful
works, could, by no means, be dismissed from service in
a work so laborious to her as reading a book; and her
lips followed their slow tracing of the lines, as if she
would assure herself by various senses of the reality of
the impressions conveyed to her by the letters. As she
bent thus absorbed in her subject, I noticed how much
power was expressed in the firm, well-defined lips and
in the broad, square brow, from which the dark gray
hair was brushed back; and, indeed, in every rugged
line of the strongly marked face. As I approached, she
looked up, startled by a little movement of the cat, and
by a musical yawn from Trusty as he stretched himself,
and rose to welcome me.
Our eyes met. Betty seemed to think it necessary to
apologize for her unusual occupation, and she said,"I was only looking, Mrs. Kitty, to see if what that
Yorkshireman said is true."
I could not help thinking of the noble women of Berea;
and leaning on the window-sill, I listened.
"For you know, my dear," she continued, "if his
words made my heart as happy as a king's, what good is
it if they were only his own words?  But if it's here,
it's not his but the Lprd's, and then it'll stand."




MRS. KITTY TRVYLYAN.             221
"Then his words did make your heart light, Betty?"
I said.
" My dear," she said, "'twas not his words at all. It's
all here, and has been here, of course, ages before he or
I was born, only I never saw it before."
And turning the Bible so that I might see, she traced
with her finger the words,"All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned
every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on
Hinm the iniquity of us all."
"There's a deal more, as good as that, my dear," she
said; "but I keep coining back to that, because it was
that that healed up my heart."
Her eyes were moist, and her voice was'soft and quiet
as she went on," Mrs. Kitty, the cure was as quick as the hurt. Just
as Mr. Wesley's words went right to the core of my
heart in a moment, and made it like one great wound,
feeling I was a lost, ungrateful, sinful woman,-these
words went right to the heart of the wound, and flowed
like sweet healing balm all through it, so that just where
the anguish had been the worst, the joy was greatest.
Not a drop of the sorrow but seemed swallowed up in a
larger drop of the joy. For it was not thinking, Mrs.
Kitty, it was seeing. I saw in my heart the blessed
Lord himself, with all my sins laid upon Him, and He,
while He was stretched, bleeding, there on the cross, all
alone, and pale, and broken-hearted with the anguish of'
the burden, the burden of my sins, seeming to say with
10




222               THE DIARY OF
His kiLd looks all the time,'I am not unwilling, Iam
quite content to bear it all for thee.' And oh, my dear,
my heart felt all riglt that very moment. I can't say it
felt light, for it seemed as if there lay upon me a load of
love and gratitude heavier than the old load of sin, but
it was all sweet, my dear, it is all sweet, and I would
not have it weigh an atom lighter for the world."
I could not speak, I could only bow down and rest my
face on Betty's hand, as I held it in mine. We were
silent a long time, and then I said," Did you tell Mr. Nelson?"
" He Came and asked; I had set myself as firm as a
rock, that there should be no crying, and praying, arid
singing over me, Mrs. Kitty, but I was so broken down
with the joy, that I didn't mind what any one did or
thought about me, but sat crying like a poor fool as I
am, until Mr. Nelson came up to me quite quiet and
gentle, and asked if anything ailed me, and then I said,
"You may thank the Lord for me, Mr. Nelson, for to my
dying day, I shall thank the Lord for you, and that you
ever came to these parts.' Then he asked what it was,
and I told him all, Mrs. Kitty, as I have told you, and
he looked mighty pleased, and said it was being converted; and said something about the'inward witness,''the witness of the Spirit.' But what that meant I knew
no more than a new-born babe, and I told him so. I
knew my heart had been as heavy as a condemned mur-'derer's, and now I was as happy as a forgiven child, and
all through seeing the blessed Lord in my heart. And




MRS. KITTY TREVIYLYAN.            223
they all smiled very pleasant; and said that was enough,
and that what more there was to learn, if I kept on
reading the Bible, and went to church, the Lord would
teach me all in time. But I felt I could bear no more
just then, so I wished them all good day and went home
alone. For I was afraid of losing the great joy, Mrs.
Kitty, if I talked too much about it. I felt as if I had
got a new treasure, and I wanted to come home and
turn it over, and look at it, and make sure it was all
true, and all really mine."
" You spoke of seeing, Betty," I said, " but you had no
visions or dreams."
"No," she said, "and I don't want any. I don't see
how it could be plainer than it is. And I found it quite
true," she went on, "about the Lord teaching me at
church. It is strange I never noticed before how the
parson says every Sunday in the prayers, so much that
John Nelson told me.'All we, like sheep, have gone
astray;' and about the forgiveness of sins, and all. The
prayers seemed wonderful and plain to me to-day, Mrs.
Kitty; but I can't say I've got to the length as yet of
understanding our parson. But, oh my dear," she concluded, "it is a great mercy for us ignorant folks that
the Bible does seem the plainest of all!"
Then I left Betty again to her meditations, and went up
for the precious half hour with Mother, before Father came
back from the fields. And I thought it right to tell her
as well as I could what Betty had told me. She was interested and touched, and looked very grave as she said,



224z             THE DIARY Oi0
"I don't see what we can say against it, Kitty. Your
Father thinks that John Nelson is a very remarkable
man. Anything which makes a person keep their temper, and love to read the Bible, and go to church, does
seem in itself good. But I think Betty is quite wise to
wish to be alone, and not to talk too much about it. It
seems to me we want all the strength religion can give
us for the doing and the enduring, so that there is little
to spare for the talking, or to waste in mere emotion."
"Yet, Mother," I said, "it is love, is it not, which
strengthens us both to do and to endure, and love has
its joys and sorrows as well as its duties."
"Yes," she said thoughtfully, " many sorrows, and also
joys. Yet, Kitty, love is proved, not by its joys and
sorrows, which are so much mixed up with self, but by
duty. God said,'I will have obedience, and not sacrifice;' and I think that means that God will have, not
the offering of this or that in the luxury of devotion, but
the' sacrifice of self; for obedience is nothing else than
the sacrifice of self."
" Yet, Mother," said I, " if the love is so deep that
it makes the obedience a delight, can that be a mistake?"
"That would be heaven, child!" she said. "But I
think none but great saints have experienced that on
earth, at least not constantly."
"Yet, Mother," I said, " it seems to me, the more one
is like a little child, with God, the more one does delight
to obey."




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAY.             225
" Perhaps it is the little children that are the great
saints, Kitty," she replied, smiling.
" But you think we need not trouble Betty about what
she feels, Mother," said I, "she seems so gentle and
happy?"
"I think we must wait and see,' said Mother.
And so our conversation ended.
Can it have been only yesterday morning I was sitting mending Mother's mittens in the hall window, when
Hugh Spencer came in, and, after just wishing me goodday, asked where Mother was, and left me to go and find
her?
It seems so much longer.
1 felt surprised that he should have no more to say
to me, when we had not met for months, and he had beel
ordained in the meantime. I thought his mind must be
full of the " subject (or object)" in which he and Evelyn
are " equally interested."  And I supposed he wanted to
consult Mother about it, thinking me too inexperienced
or too much of a child to be able to give any advice
worth having.
I did feel rather hurt, and then I began to be afraid
I might have shown him that I felt vexed, and received
him stiffly and coldly. And I resolved when he came in
again (if he came) to speak quite as usual to him. What
right, indeed, had I to feel hurt? Of course Mother was
a better counsellor for any one than I could be; and
every one could see how much better Evelyn's opinion




226              THE DIARY OF
was worth having than mine. But then my thoughts
went off into quite another channel.
For some days it had been becoming clearer and
clearer to me that the way out of the difficulty about
Jack's debts was simply to consult Hugh. He already
knew the worst of it, since Jack had written to beg of
him himself. I had paid Miss Pawsey already, and I
thought I would ask him to settle with the Jew, and to
take the rest of what I had for his own loan (of course
not saying the money was mine). So I sat thinking
how best to begin, and making a number of imaginary
speeches, in reply to an equal number of possible observations of Hugh's, when he returned.
He was alone, and I resolved not to lose a minute. So,
without looking up from Mother's mittens (for Jack's
reputation was concerned, and it was a delicate matter
to negotiate, and I felt nervous), I began at once (forgetting all my speeches), at what was certainly the
wrong end. I said, speaking very fast, and feeling myself colouring crimson as I spoke,"Hugh, some time since Jack bought a cherry-coloured
ribbon for me, and he said you paid for it, and he left
me some money-at least he told me about it."
"And will you not accept even a cherry-coloured
ribbon from me, Mrs. Kitty?" said Hugh.
Still I did not look up; but I said," It was not exactly that Jack told me; it was about
the other money you lent him, and I am to pay it you by
degrees."




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.            227
And there I stopped, having become inextricably perplexed between the difficulty of not telling a story, and
of not betraying the fact that I was to pay Jack's debts
with my own money.
Then Hugh spoke, and his voice was very gentle and
low, for he was standing quite near me; and he said, —
"Kitty, I came to speak to you about quite a different
subject."
And then I looked up, for I thought of Evelyn's letter.
But we did not say anything more that evening about
Jack's debts.
Indeed, I do not know what we said.
Nor, when Hugh went home and Mother came in, did
she say much.
She only took me to her heart, and murmured, " My
darling child!"
But I do not feel any more anxiety about the " subject
(or object)" in which Evelyn and Hugh are " equally interes,ted."
To think that Hugh had been wishing this so many
years!
Only I am not half worthy of Hugh and his love.
Yet God can make me even that, in time.




VII.
THINK no one ever had so many kinds of
happiness mixed together in their cup as I
have.
I can hardly ever get beyond " adoration" and' thanksgiving" in my " acts of piety" now, except when I have to
make "confession" of not having been half thankful
enough.
For Hugh is to be his father's curate, and Parson Spencer told Mother it has always been understood that, after
him, the living will be given to Hugh, so that we are to
have the great joy, Hugh and I, of having it for our business in life, to do all the good we can all our lives long
to those who have known us from our childhood. All
the good we can in every kind of way. Other people
have it for their calling, the thing given them to do, to
fight in the King's armies, or to make laws, or to make
other people keep them, or to buy and sell, or, like Betty,
to make butter and scrub floors, doing what good they
can, by the way, or after their work is done; but doing
good is to be our business, profession, study, always,
every day, Hugh's and mine. In the morning we are to
(228)




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK;              229
think whc there are around us to be helped or comforted,
turned out of the wrong way, cheered on in the right.
With others, maintenance, traffic, are necessary objects,
We need not have one selfish object in life. The poorest
must feel there is always one door in the parish from which
they will not be turned away. Those who have sunk the
lowest must feel that there is always one hand that will
not fear to be polluted by touching them to lift them up.
And all this will not be a romantic enterprise for us,
but simple, plain duty, which is so much sweeter.
For Hugh says it is a desecration of the endowments
which were given of old for sacred purposes, when the
clergy treat their incomes as if they were like any cornmon produce of traffic, or estate of inheritance, or wages
of secular work. It is consecrated wealth still, he says;
and when we have used what we need for a simple and
unpretentious household, we owe our superfluous stores
to the Church and the poor. All Christians, he says, are
indeed stewards of consecrated wealth, but the clergy, he
thinks, more especially.  It would be a disgrace, he
thinks, if the distinction between the Popish clergy and
ours were that ours are secularized into mere thrifty farmers, or little squires. It is not in devotedness we should
differ from the ancient priesthood.
I am afraid it is the parsonesses that put things wrong
sometimes. I hope I shall not be a hindrance to Hugh.
I must not grudge his going cut in the evening on any
summons of duty, on stormy nights, even though he may
seem wearied already with the day's work. I must not




230               THE DIARY OF
let any womanish fears prevent his visiting the sick, even
though the sickness be deadly contageous pestilence.
Should I be less brave than a soldier's wife, or a poor
fisherman's? Men are meant to peril their lives and to
wear out their strength in work, Hugh says; and if the
parson's calling were to be without its perils and toils, it
would be less manly than the sailor's, or the shepherd's,
or the miner's, or any other working man's, and therefore
less Christian.
Easy things for me to'intend; but not so easy to do,
when the peril or the trial comes! Yet if we are to
have the true blessing of our calling, we must go forth to
it, Hugh says, not as a paradise, but as a campaign. And
then it will be we, always we I and that makes all the
difference.
Yet how could I bear to take all this happiness if it
were to bring loss to Mother, if I caught her tender eyes
every now and then watching me wistfully, and filling
with tears,-and she still so feeble. But this will scarcely
take me from her,-not at all at first, for we are to have
our home under this dear old roof,-so that it will be
all gain to Mother and to Father too. And then I have
some one to consult about everything. Because (and that
is another especial blessing) Hugh knows already all
about us all. He has watched Mother as anxiously as I
have; and we can plan together about the best way of
helping Jack, without my telling him anything more of
the things I scarcely could have told. even Hugh, if he
lhad not known them before.




MRS. KITTY TREVYL TAN.            231
Hugh is not at all hopeless about Jack, although he
knows all; but he says he seems like one in a dream, and
he does think it must be a rough call that will wake him.
Father and Betty are so busy clearing out and repairing the rooms in the older part of the house, which are
to be ours,-delightful old rooms with great stone chimneys, and one in a tower with a long arched window,
which is to be Hugh's own den. It is high up, and from
the casement, through an opening of the hills, you catch
one glimpse of the sea, —a.bright line of light on sunny
days, at evening a dim heaving cloud of purple against
the green gold of the sunset; and always, Hugh says, a
path for thought to sail on, out into the wide world.
Hugh and I have dived into forgotten stores in the
lumber-room, and fished up wonderful pearls in the
shape of old oaken chairs, which only want their backs
mended, and tables which only want a leg or two to be
quite stately.
Betty thinks little of these discoveries, saying concisely that ten shillings' worth of furniture from the shop
in Falmouth is worth t!em all. But then, carving and
associations have no value in Betty's inventory.
She thinks much more of Mother's purchases and
manufactures, although she says clothes in these days
are mere cobwebs compared to the stuffs of our forefathers, when Master's great-grandmother's wedding
dress survived to become a christening robe for Master,
and after that a covering for the best sofa, and looked
as good as new to the last.




232              THE DIARY OF
But Mother and Betty have become quite confidential
once more over the matter, Betty's sober and conservative views about woolseys and linseys having in some
measure restored the confidence in her judgment, so
much impaired in Mother's mind by her views about
the Methodists.
Hugh said the other day there is no doubt Mr. John
Wesley would recognize Mother to be a most saintly
woman, if he knew her; and that he feels sure, if Mother
knew Mr. John Wesley, his life of labour, his entire
devotion to God, his unlimited benevolence and beneficence to man, his attachment to the Church services,
she would revere him as next to the Apostles. It is the
greatest trial of Reformers, he thinks, that they have
often to be blamed and misunderstood by the good men
and women of their times.
He says if Mother had lived in Martin Luther's time
she might probably have prayed for him in her convent
as a prodigal whilst living by the very faith he spent his
life to proclaim.
"But if Mother had lived in a convent, Hugh," I said,
"she would never have been married, and she would
have been a Papist; which would have been impossible."
He smiled, and said,"But Kitty, Mir. Wesley thinks some of the holiest
people who ever lived were Roman Catholics."
"That must have been when there was nothing else
for people to be." I said.




MRES. KITTY TREVYLYANV.           233
"Nay," he replied, "Mr. Wesley says now,'I dare
not exclude from the Church catholic all those congregations in which unscriptural doctrines, which cannot
be affirmed to be the pure word of God are sometimes,
nay frequently, preached; neither all those congregations
in which the sacraments are not duly administered
(as the Church of Rome), whoever they are that have
one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one God and
Father of all.' 
"That is a great comfort,?' I said. "But I think we
had better not conjecture what Mother would have been
if she had lived in Martin Luther's days. Nothing bewilders my brain like thinking what might have been if
something else had been. Thank God, Hugh, she did
not live in those old dark days, nor any of us."
"I am very thankful you did not at any rate, Kitty,"
he said, with his quiet smile, which is as joyous as
laughter, " at least unless we had all been transplanted
together."
But I was intending to write about Betty, and I have
wandered quite away.
)ne evening about a fortnight since, Father was sitting
after supper in one corner of the hall, smoking some
Virginian tobacco a ship's captain had brought him
lately as a present, with the book on " Fortifications" open
before him, and Mother and I were busy cutting out
garments at the deal table at the other side of the fire,
when Betty, after removing the supper, announced her




234               THE DIARY OF
intention of joining the Methodist Society which met in
the village.
Mother said gravely," You can do as you like, Bethy; indeed, I suppose you
will do as you like. This new kind of religion seems to
make that a necessity for every one."
Very severe words for Mother; yet Mother being the
gentlest of beings, is nevertheless in her gentle way absolutely impenetrable when once her mind is made up.
" Once for all, however, Betty," she continued, laying
down her scissors, and speaking in the low quiet tone
neither Jack nor I ever thought of resisting, "I think
it my duty faithfully to warn you. I do not understand
this religion of violent excitement and determined selfwill. The religion I believe in is one which enables us
to control our feelings and yield up our self-will."
" Missis," said Betty, "I may as well speak my mind
out at once too. If you mean that I couldn't keep back
my tears at the Sacrament yesterday, no more I couldn't,
nor I scarce can now when I think of it. For the
blessed Lord himself was there, and I felt as sure of it
as that poor woman who washed His feet with her tears.
I felt it was the Lord himself giving himself to me, and
showing me He loved me, and had died for me, and that
my sins were forgiven. Didn't old Widow Jennifer
rouse up all the town with her crying and sobbing when
her poor lost boy came back, that was thought to be
wrecked; and didn't he sob too, bearded man as he
was? And is it any wonder I should cry at finding my




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAY.             235
God? Sure enough, Missis, I was shipwrecked worse
than Jennifer's son, and sure enough my God is more to
me than any mother and son to each other. 0 Missis,
if you only knew how lost I had been, you wouldn't
wonder. You'd wonder I kept as quiet as I did."
Mother was silent some little time. Her kind thoughtful eyes moistened and then were cast down, and she
only said very gently," I know such assured peace and such joys have been
given to some, Betty, but they were great saints, and I
think it was generally just before their death."
" Well, Missis," said Betty, simply, "I am sure I am
no great saint, and I don't know that I am like to die,
but I know that none but the Lord could give me joy
like that; and if it's for me, surely it's for all. And
John Nelson says our parsons say so every Sunday."
" The parsons say every Sunday, every one may know
their sins are forgiven!" exclaimed Mother.
"Every one who repents and believes," said Betty.
"Mr. John Nelson made me see how it says in the
Prayer-Book,'He pardoneth and absolveth all those
who truly repent and unfeignedly believe His Holy Gospel.' And if I ever felt anything truly in my life, Missis,
I've felt sorry for my sins, and hated them, and they say
that is repentance. And if I believe anything in the
world, it is that the blessed Lord died on the Cross for
sinners, and John Nelson says that is the Holy Gospel.
So that, now, whenever our parson comes to that, my
heart leaps for joy. For it isn't'will pardon,' but'par



236               THE DIARY OF
doneth,' and that must mean forgiveness now. So it's all
the same to me as if the parson said, " Betty Roskelly,
God Almighty has commanded me to tell you he forgives you your sins for the sake of Christ Jesus our
Lord. And Missis," concluded Betty, "I don't mind
how little I can understand the sermon, when that's so
plain. So when the parson gets into the pulpit, I listen
to the text, (which is most times plain too), and then I
think,'Now he's going to preach to the learned folks,
like himself, but I've got my sermon already, and it's
enough for me;' so I sit and think, quite content."
"But," resumed Mother after a pause, " you have heard
those words every Sunday of your life. What makes
the absolution such a new and strange thing to
you?"
"I cannot well say, Missis," said Betty, " unless it is
the' now' and' me.' I always listened to it all, as if the
parson were reading good words made a long time ago
about good things a long way off, to be given after a
long while to I didn't exactly know who. But when I
came to see that it is God now forgiving me, that makes
all the difference."
"Now, if the Prayer-Book makes you so content,
Betty," said Mother, shifting her attack, " what do you
want with those new-fangled meetings?"
"It's the meetings that make me understand the prayers, Missis," said Betty, persisting.
"I hope you do understand them, Betty, and are not
deluding yourself." said Mother, and having thus reserved




IMRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN.           237
her rights to the last word, she abandoned the contest,
and Betty retired.
In the course of the evening, as we were all gathered
round the fire, Father said,"My dear, I advise you to have no more theological
discussions with Betty. She turned your position neatly
with her quotations from the Prayer-Book."
Mother coloured a little.
"You know, my dear, we pray every Sunday against
schism as well as against heresy, and I am very much
afraid of people deluding themselves into a kind of religious insanity with this new religion."
"My dear," said Father, "I have seen a good many
religions, and not too much religion in the world with all
of them together. I am not much afraid of a schism
which sends people to church, nor of an insanity which
makes them good servants. These are strange times.
The Squire told me to-day they have sent poor John
Greenfield to prison, and when I asked him why (for
though the poor fellow was a sad drunkard and ill-liver
in years past, since he has taken up with the Methodists
he has been as steady as Old Time), he said,'why the
man is well enough in other things; but his impudence is
not to be borne. Why, sir, he says he knows his sins are
forgiven.'*  But," concluded Father, gravely, " there are
some old soldiers who might think poor John Greenfield's
penalty worth bearing, if they could share his crime."
Mother is always easily melted out of the rigidity of
* Vide Wesley's Journal.




238              THE DIARY OF
controversy 1y any symptom of yielding on the other side.
It is so foreign to her nature that (as I have noticed with
other gentle people), the very effort required to enter on
it makes her for the time more stiff and unyielding when
she begins; just as I have noticed that a captain of militia
will wear his untried sword with twice as fierce and military an air as Father, who fought through the great
Duke's campaigns.  But now, seeing Father's pensive
face, she gladly doffed her armour and laid her hand
on his arm and said," My love, the Bible says'there is forgiveness with
God for all."' And lowering her voice she added,
"When I look at the Cross of our Saviour, and see Him
suffer and hear Him plead, it seems impossible that God
cannot forgive, and then again when I look at my sins, I
think it is almost impossible He can. And so, my love,"
she said, " find no comfort but in looking at the Cross of
my Lord again. And perhaps it may be the same for you."
He laid his hand on hers, and said with a grave smile,
looking into her dear, pure, tender face.
"Thy sins, Polly, must be a great weight indeedI
Faith, I would like to hear thy confessions.'To-day I
was too worldly and too glad to see Kitty so happy.
Yesterday I was too sorry to see my husband in a passion. Every day I love every one more than I ought,
and do ten times more for them than they deserve.
Are these thy confessions?"
She looked a little grieved at his turning the conver
sation lightly, and sJon after she went to rest. But this




MRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN.            239
morning she told me I must not think anything of it; it
was only a way, she said, dear Father had caught in the
army, and she had no doubt he thought far more religiously than he talked. Nor must I think anything of'
what he said about the sins of his former life; a truer
and gentler heart, she said, never beat. The bravest
were always the kindest. "And then, Kitty," she concluded, " What are the perils and temptations of women to
those of men? Perhaps more women than men may creep
quietly and safely into heaven;' but every man who gets
there must be a hero, a king fit to reign over ten cities."
But when Father and I were left alone, he said," Kitty, it is a strange world. Here are men who set
the whole ten commandments at defiance-imprisoning
a good man for confessing his sins and believing they are
forgiven. This morning, when I was out before dawn
looking for a stray sheep, I heard a sound of grave sweet
singing; and I found it was a company of poor tinners,
waiting, around John Wesley's lodging to get a sermon
before they went to their work, and singing hymns till
he came out. And here's Betty, with a temper like the
Furies, turned saint; and your Mother, with a life like
an angel's, bemoaning her sins. It's a very strange world,
Kitty; but if John Nelson came this way again, I would
go and hear him. I'm not clear the stout Yorkshireman
mightn't preach as good a sermon as some other people
we know. And there's a good deal in that idea of Betty's,
about the'now' and the'me.'"
"Hugh says John Nelson is a wonderful preacher,




240               THE DIARY OF
Father," I said; " and some people think Hugh's own
sermons are beautiful."
"So, ho I Hugh a Methodist too!" said Father, patting
my cheek. "But who said that Hugh's sermons were
not beautiful?"
The Hall Farm is honoured at present by a most distinguished guest.
A few days since, Cousin Evelyn announced that it
was her royal pleasure to pay us a visit.
" I shall come without a maid," she wrote; "for Stubbs
is persuaded that the Cornish people are heathens, who
never offer a prayer except that ships may be wrecked
on their coasts; that they tie lanterns to mares' tails, to
bring about the same result, the poor sailors mistaking
them for guiding lights; that when ships are thus wrecked,
they murder the crew, and probably eat them afterwards,
but of this she is not sure; of the perils of the journey,
however, she is sure. And ready as she declares herself
to be for any sacrifice on my account, I feel it would
be an ungenerous return for such unlimited devotion to
strain it so far. I have therefore dispensed with her
services, promising to secure her a slice of the pie of me,
as a relic, in case of the worst. And, indeed, mamma
says it cannot matter much my having a maid to decorate
me; for she calls Cornwall'Western Barbary,' and
thinks that whatever fashion I introduce may pass for
the newest Court mode. But, Cousin Kitty, you and I
know better. Mamma knows nothing of Miss Pawsey;




MRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN.            241
but I wlho do, intend to bring my most elaborate brocades, and my largest hoops, and my choicest lace-lappets
for the barber at Falmouth to arrange. For spectators,
what can any woman desire better than that most courtly
old courtier my uncle, and that most perfect gentlewoman
my aunt? to say nothing of my sweet demure cousin, and
a neighbouring gentleman who has told me far more
about her than she, fickle goddess, ever deigned to tell
me about him. Happily f)r my heart, Cousin Jack is at
the wars; but then there are. Betty and Trusty. I am
wild with pleasure, Cousin Kitty, at the thought of seeing
you all. And I expect you will have Mr. John Wesley
down on purpose to edify me. Your most loving cousin,
"EVELYN BEXUCHAMP."
Father shook his head and said there was too much
truth in what the maid said about the Cornish wreckers,
to make it a matter for a jest.
Mother, however, softened by the compliment to
Father' manners, was only half pleased with the letter,
and not at all pleased at the prospect of the visit.
" Such an extraordinary mixture, Kitty I" she said" Mr. Wesley and the Falmouth barber, Methodists and
hoop-petticoatsI What are we to do with such a fine
lady-a young woman, too, with such a very dangerous
levity as regards the Church? I do wish you had not
drawn her such a picture of me, my poor fond Kitty I
What will she think? However, she was very kind to
you, and we must do our best."




242              THE DIABR    OF
Nor was Betty more pleased than Mother.
" It was a blessing indeed," she said, " she was not to
bring her maid, for she had heard that London maids
were far finer ladies than their mistresses. Not that she
was afraid of any fine lady, mistress or maid; for who
was better blood than the Trevylyans? And she should
certainly have given the maid a bit of her mind, which
might have done her good."
But knowing the angular character of these " bits of
Betty's mind," I cannot but be glad at Stubbs' escape.
And now, Cousin Evelyn has been here only a week,
and has conquered every heart in the house, from Betty's,
bristling all over with controversial assertions of the
glory of the Trevylyans, to Mother's, trembling all over
with the sense of her own deficiencies, and the terror of
Cousin Evelyn's grandeur, and wit, and heterodoxy.
The afternoon she arrived, in spite of Betty's remonstrances, the table was set as usual in the hall, instead of
in the parlour. It was just growing dusk. The blaze
of the great fire of logs, on the hearth, was fast overpowering with its ruddy glow and quivering shadows
the pale, fading daylight. Father kept pacing the hall
and gazing out of the window, declaring Evelyn ought to
have been here an hour since. Mother hovered about
the supper table, arranging the plates with a ner vous
precision, when the clatter of hoofs was heard in the
court, and the sound of a ringing voice, and in another
moment I was leading Cousin Evelyn in.




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.            243
She looked so radiant, it seemed to me she brought the
day back again into the house as she entered it, her face
glowing with air and exercise, the feather waving in her
hat, her rich brown hair knotted behind with scarlet,
and falling in curls over her blue habit faced with silver.
She did not overpower Mother with any great vivacity,
or with any violent demonstrations of affection. The
ordinary tones of her voice were deep and low, with a
kind of muffled power, and her manner was composed and
quiet. And this evening there.was a reverent tenderness
in her tones whenever she addressed Father, and especially, Mother, that was most winning. Because there is
that kind of power about Cousin Evelyn that makes one
feel her affection something giving, not asking —a strong,
kind arm thrown round you to cherish you, rather than
a feeble, clinging tendril, twining round you to support
itself. And her reverence or admiration always seems
like the condescension of a queen stooping to kiss your
hand.
Trusty, having investigated her rights with that peculiar sense (whatever i is) residing in his nose, sanctioned
her at once by that peculiar power of language residing
in his tail.
This quiet operation was his ordinary way of receiving
any new-comer; but Counin Evelyn's case he evidently
felt to be exceptional. Like every one else with Evelyn,
but quite in contradiction of his own usual sentiments,
Trusty evidently felt her approval was even more necessary than his in the acquaintance, and kept sitting beside




244              THE DIARY OF
her, wistfully gazing into her face, until she honoured him
with a friendly pat from her little soft hand, saying, " So,
you are Trusty!" when he was satisfied, and retired to
his place before the fire.
The household have all expressed to me their appreciation of Cousin Evelyn in their various ways.
Mother said the next morning, as I took her the new
milk," Kitty, I should never have thought Evelyn so clever
as you say she is. She seems to me a dear good child,
not at all wild, nor.in the least conceited. I am sure
there is nothing in her conversation to lead any one to
think she knows any language but her own, nor anything
in her behaviour to indicate the least dangerous tendency
towards separatists and agitators; and not a particle of
the fine lady about her; rather shy, I should have thought
her. I am sure we must all do our utmost to make the
dear child feel at home. And there is a strange wistful
look in her eyes, Kitty," continued Mother, " that goes to
my heart-a kind of orphaned look. Perhaps her home
is not as happy as ours, with all its splendour. I feel
strangely drawn to the child. I have a kind of motherly
feeling for her, Kitty. We must do everything to make
her happy."
As if it was anything strange for Mother's heart to
have a kind of motherly feeling to any creature she had
to do with!
But it is strange she should notice that wistful look in
Cousin Evelyn's eyes, for I never said much to her about




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.            245
Aunt Beauchamp. I thought it would be a breach of
hospitality. Mother always taught us it would be such
a treachery to gossip about the secrets Qf any home where
we are welcomed.
Father on the contrary said,"That child is monstrously clever. I believe Kitty,
with a very little teaching, she would know as much of
the science of war as I do. She entered into my description of the great battle of Malplaquet as intelligently as
if she had been an old soldier:"
Betty has said little. She is not the person to strike
her colours at the first summons. But yesterday morning
when I came back from the milking I found Cousin Evelyn established with Betty in the dairy on terms of intimacy it took Jack and me many years to win, actually
rolling up a pat of butter with her dainty little hands,
her round white arms bare to the ruffles at her elbows.
And afterwards Betty said to me," I am not going to say Mrs. Evelyn is what she might
have been if she had been brought up in the country in a
sensible way; but a fine lady she is not. A more free
and affable young lady I never did see. Her fingers are
not all thumbs, she's sense enough for anything if she'd
only been taught, poor young thing. And," continued
Betty candidly, " that's more than I thought when I saw
her first, with her feathers and her ribbons, and her coat
like a general's, with all that tinsel stuff about it. But
to hear her talk about Parson Wesley and his sermons,
with that fly away lace on her head, and her long curls,
11




246              TEE DIARY OF
and those little high-heeled red slippers, and a petticoat
like a hen coop, was more than I could quite take in."
"But, Betty," said I, " these things are no more to
Cousin Evelyn than my woolsey petticoat and laced
bodice to me; or Mother's cushion and cap and muslin
kerchief pinned over her dress to her; or your Sunday
cloak and hood to you."
" Maybe, Mrs. Kitty," said Betty, " but I've spoke my
mind to Mrs. Evelyn, and she's spoke her mind to me.
And I hope she'll bd the better for it, for I think I
shall."
By this I knew that Betty and Cousin Evelyn had had
a passage at arms, the usual title to such rights of citizenship as Betty can confer.
In the evening we had a long talk, Evelyn and I, in
my chamber, before-we went to bed. Mother had furbished up an old state bed with faded tapestry hangings
representing Herodias with John Baptist's head in a
charger, and had placed it in one of the rooms which
have been cleared out and whitewashed for us. But
Cousin Evelyn entreated not to be put into such ghostly
company again.
The first night she slept there alone, and she declared
that as the wood fire flickered on the livid antique forms,
they glowed and stirred in the strangest way, and that
she should never be able to tell whether an unnatural
glare that came over the countenance of Herodias, just
as she was' going to sleep, was merely the dying flicker




MRS. KITTY TREVYL YAS.           247
of the embers, or that princess herself revivified and
scowling on her with murderous eyes. Accordingly she
has taken refuge with me.
Our conversation began about Betty. Evelyn said,"I like you all-very much, Kitty, but I am not sure
that Betty is not the best and wisest among you, and
the greatest friend to me. Aunt Trevylyan spoils me
by her tenderness, and Uncle Trevylyan by his courteous
deference, and you by your humility. But Betty knows
better, and she has given me a bit of her mind, and I
have given her a bit of mine. This morning I asked
her to teach me to make butter, and she said,'Mrs.
Evelyn, my dear, I'll teach you what I can, although I
half think you are after nothing but a bit of play. But
before we begin, I must tell you what's been on my mind
for some time. You may play, my dear, with Master
about his battles, and with Missis at learning to sew, and
with me at making butter, if you like, but I can't abide
play about religion, and I can't think it's anything else
when you talk about Parson Wesley and his wonderful
words, with those lappets and feathers flying about your
face, and tripping on your little red shoes. The Bible's
plain; and I marked a text which you'll be pleased to
read.'
" She gave me her great Bible, and I read:'In that
day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments,' etc.'But, Betty,' I said,'I don't wear
any tinkling ornaments, nor nose jewels, nor round tires
like the moon, nor bells in my toes.'




24               TrHE DIARY OF
"'You may smile, Mrs. Evelyn,' said Betty very gravely,'but I think itl's no laughing matter. If that had been
written in our days, my dear, your lappets, and furbelows,
and hoop petticoats would have come in, sure enough.
And it was written for you and me as sure as if it had
been written yesterday; so we've got to understand it.
But Parson Wesley's sermons are no child's play, my dear,'
she concluded;'and if you'd felt them tearing at your
heart as I have, you'd know it; and till you do, I'd rather
not talk about them.' )
" And what did you say, Cousin Evelyn?" I asked.
"I was angry," said Evelyn, "for I thought Betty
harsh and uncharitable, and I said,"' I have felt Parson Wesley's words, Betty, and I have
learned from him that pride and vanity can hide in other
places besides lappets and furbelows. It's a great warfare we're in, and the enemy has wiles as well as fiery
darts; and it is not always so sure when we have driven
the enemy out of sight that we have defeated him. We
may have driven him further in; into the citadel of our
hearts, Betty,' I said;'and one foe in the citadel is
worse than an enemy in the field.'"
" And what did Betty answer?" I asked.
"She answered nothing," said Evelyn.  "She said,'Young folks were very wise in these days,' and then she
began to give me my lesson in making butter. But as I
was leaving the dairy afterwards, she said,'Mrs. Evelyn,
my dear, I am not going to say I've no pride or conceit
of my own. Maybe we'd better each look to ourselves.'




iRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN              249
1 gave her hand a hearty shake, and I know we shall be
good friends."
(Marginal Note.-I noticed after this that throughout
her visit Cousin Evelyn wore the soberest and plainest
dresses she had.)
Then after a pause Cousin Evelyn continued, in a soft
and deep tone,"Cousin Kitty, I no longer wonder at your being the
dear little creature you are. I do not see how you could
help growing up good and sweet here, in such a home
I love you all so much! Aunt Trevylyan has just such a
sweet, choice aromatic'odour of sanctity' about her as
old George Herbert would have delighted to enshrine in
one of his quaint vases of perfume-those dear old hymns
of his; a kind of fragrance of fresh rose leaves and Oriental spices, all blended into a sacred incense. And
dear Uncle Trevylyan and I, Kitty, have talks I am afraid
your Mother would think rather dangerous, during those
long walks of ours over the cliffs and through the fields.
He likes to hear about John Nelson and the Wesleys,
and their strong homely sayings, and their brave daring
of mobs, and their patient endurance of toil and weariness. He said one day he had been used to think of
religion as a fair robe to make women such as your
Mother (how he loves her, Kitty!) even lovelier than they
were by nature, to be reverently put on on Sundays and
holy days, and, it was to be hoped, hereafter in heaven
But of a religion for every day and all day, here and
now, to be worn by all and woven into the coarse stuff




250               THE DIARY OF
of every-day life- -a religion to be girt about a man on
the battle-field, and at the mine, and in the fishingboat, he had scarcely thought till he met John Nelson."
It is a great pleasure to take Coasin Evelyn to all our
old familiar haunts. She is more delighted with our
wild seas and rocky shores than even I had expected.
She makes me see beautiful pictures in things to which I
had grown so accustomed as scarcely to observe them.
The view from the shady recesses of our "Robinson
Crusoe's Cave" across the white sands and the line of
breakers to the broad sea twinkling in countless waves
on and on to the horizon, where it shone a line of emerald light touching the opal sky, enchanted her.  She
said she had no idea what a wealth of radiance floods
our every-day footsteps in the open world, until she looked
out on it from that cavern.
"Think, Cousin Kitty," she said, "we are walking,every hour of the day in that fairy world of glory and
beauty without knowing it; and people call it'this
every-day life,' and' this work-a-day world.' Can we not
understand a little," she added, "how it is that God
finds it for our profit to lead us sometimes into the
shadows?"
Often she longs for some of the great old painters to
be here and transfer some of these scenes to canvas;the sea with its amethyst and emerald tints, the strange
peaks, and pinnacles, and arched bridges in the dark
rocks against which the snow-white waves leap; the




MRS. KITTY TEVYL YAN.             25 1
little openings in our green wooded valley, through which
we catch sunny glimpses of the sea. She and Father
delight to compare these things with the landscapes of
the great masters which he has seen in Flanders, and
she in various great houses in England.
Yet, in some way, there is a difference between
Evelyn's enjoyment of these things and mine. When
she would pause in delight and amazement and exclaim,
" What a picture! what a flood of golden light for Cuyp!
what a contrast that sky and those rocks would make for
Claude!"-at first I used to wonder at my own dullness in
taking it all so quietly; until one day, when I said so to
Hugh, he replied," It is not dullness, Kitty, that makes you never think
of exclaiming, every now and then, as you look at your
Mother,' What a picture that face is I' And yet I am
sure Raphael never painted a countenance of more sacred
purity and tenderness than her's. It is your Mother's
face;;you do not wonder at it; you know it too well.
Its sweet beauty has been shining on your heart since
you were a baby, and has grown part of you. It is so
with nature. Your Cousin Evelyn has been used to see
the world from the windows of magnificent mansions,
and she has taste to see it is grander than any picturegallery they contain.  But still it is a picture-gallerya collection of master-pieces to her. I think fou have
been better off. You have not gone to see the beauties
of nature as an exhibition; you have grown up among
them, and done your every-day work among them; they




252               THE DIARY OF
have been the flowers by your daily path, the familiar
walls and roof of your home. You have lived, as it
were, at home with nature, close to her heart. Her
glorious face has been beaming on you like your Mother's
from your infancy. She is no mere picture to you, she is
your friend. You do not gaze and exclaim,'How beautiful' You love and enjoy. Her beauty has entered
into your very heart. It does us good to admire what is
good and beautiful. But it does us infinitely more good
to love it. We grow like what we admire. But we become one with what we love."'
I suppose there may be some truth in what Hugh says,
although it is certainly coloured by his affection.
But I do feel thankful it has been my lot to live in
our humble, quiet way, seeing the sunrise as I go to milk
Daisy, not as a great sight to rise for once in a life
time; and the sunset as I come back from all kinds of
homely errands; hearing the birds, not as a concert now
and then, but singing close to my chamber-window morning and evening; the same rooks cawing in the same
dear old elms; the same thrushes building year after
year in the same nest in the old thorn.
Evelyn told me to-day she had had a conversation with
Betty on ecclesiastical history, in reference to the great
multitude of Cornish saints-St. Just, St. Neot, St. Perran, St. Ives. Betty, it seems, has a theory that they
were the John Wesleys and the John Nelsons of those
days, sent by the Almighty to wake the folks up; and




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             253
she wonders if the Methodists will ever fall asleep again,
as the converts of the old saints must have done, so that
it will be needful for fresh saints to be sent again to
awake them.
Most of all, however, I admire Cousin Evelyn when she
is talking to Hugh. She enters into his high purposes,
and wide hopes for the world, with such enthusiasm. I
used to feel like a dwarf beside her. But now I only
feel like a creature of a similar kind, not dwarfed, I
trust, thank God, but naturally of a less size and meant
to occupy a smaller space than Cousin Evelyn, but with
that little space and that humble growth so content, so
fully content I
My only fear is sometimes lest I should make Hugh's
world narrow and his purpose dwindle to my degree.
When he and Evelyn converse, they seem to ennoble
each other, and I have no power to originate anything.
I can only sympathize with their purposes, and work
out their thoughts in some little homely way. I am
afraid Evelyn would have helped Hugh much better.
But I cannot help that. I could not choose for him.
And he chose me-not some ideal woman who might be
ten times better for him-but me myself, little Kitty
Trevylyan, just as I am. And as it was no choice of
mine, but his, and there is no doubt about its being
right, it is such a sure deep, unutterable joy. I must
just accept it all, and be happy, and love God and every
one ten times as much as ever.




254              THE DIARY OF
We have had a charming little excursion round part
of the coast, Father, and Eyelyn, and I, and on our way
home we were present at one of Mr. Wesley's great
field-preachings at Gwennap Pit; and as it came in our
way, so that Mother could not be grieved, I am so glad
we were there. Because I would not go for the world
anywhere to grieve Mother, for a religious pleasure,
more than for any other pleasure. And although Mr.
Wesley's field-preachings are infinitely more than a
religious pleasure to Betty and thousands of others, I
do not see that they would be so to Cousin Evelyn
and me.
We started on two horses, I on a pillion behind
Father; Evelyn dressed in as sober attire as she could
find in her wardrobe, not to attract too much attention.
This, as it happened, was a great comfort (for I must
confess Cousin Evelyn's first appearance at our church,
in her large straw hat trimmed with flowers, her rich
violet silk dress, festooned over her green brocade petticoat, her Paduasoy mantle, scarlet stockings, and leopard
skin muff, did considerably distract the congregation);
and I should not at all have enjoyed her appearing in
any such dainty attire under Mr. Wesley's penetrating
eyes at Gwennap.
How little the ancient miners thought, as they cut
deep and wide into the lonely hill-side of Cam Math,
how they were excavating a church for tens of thousands. When we arrived at the place thousands of
people were there already, standing about in groups




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAY.             255
conversing eageliy, or sitting on the rocks and turf in
silence, waiting the arrival of the preacher. Still more
and more continued to stream in-whole families from
lonely cottages on the moors, the mother carrying the
baby, and the father leading the little ones, leaving the
home empty; companies of miners, with grim faces and
clothes, from the mines; fishermen, with rough weatherbeaten faces from the shores. Few of the countenances
were dull; many of them were wild, with dark, disheveled hair, eager dark eyes, and rugged, expressive
features. Evelyn whispered,"If I were Mr. Wesley, I would infinitely rather preach
to this wild-looking congregation than to a collection of
the stony, stolid faces of the midland counties, or to a
smooth-faced London audience. There is some fire to be
struck out of these eyes.  How historical the rugged
faces are, Cousin Kitty I Dark stories, I think, written
on some of them; but some story written on all. I should
have thought John Nelson would have done better than
Mr. John Wesley here."
He appeared in his blameless clerical black, with the
large silver buckles on his shoes —the little compact man
with the placid benevolent face.. As he stood, the object
of the eager gaze of those untaught thousands, so selfpossessed, and clerical, and calm, I almost agreed with
Evelyn, and longed for the sturdy Yorkshireman, with
his stalwart frame, his ready wit, his plain, pointed sense,
his rugged eloquence.
But when he began to speak, that wish immediately




256              THE DIARY OF
ceased, the calm, gentlemanly voice, the self-possessed
demeanour, made every word come with the force of a
word of command. In a few moments every stir was
hushed throughout that great assembly.
Before the prayer and preaching began I had been
thinking how small a space even these thousands of human beings occupied in the great sweep of the hilly moorland. But when the sermon began, and I looked round
on the amphitheatre of earnest intent faces, not the great
hills only but the sky and earth seemed to grow insignificant in comparison with any one of the listening, deathless spirits gathered there.
Before Mr. Wesley had uttered, many sentences I
ceased to look at the audience. My eyes also were riveted
on his benevolent face.
And before I had thus looked and listened long I forgot Mr. Wesley himself altogether in the overwhelming
love and grace of the pardon he proclaimed., It was the old inexhaustible good news, that all men
being lost and wandering sheep (and probably not one
present needed to have this proved to them), the Good
Shepherd had come to seek and to save that which was
lost; that all men being under sentence of death, He that
might have claimed the forfeit hath paid the ransom;
that the way to eternal joy, once closed by sin and the
flaming sword of justice was now for ever open to all,
the sword having been buried in the heart of Him who
willingly offered up himself for us the flames quenched in
His precious blood. The way was open to all; and most




MRSI KITTY TIEVYLYAN.              257
earnestly Mr. Wesley invited all to return back to God
by this " new and living way" then and there.
Soon the sound of subdued weeping directed my attention once more to the multitude around me. The most
part were " listening with a close, silent attention, with
gravity and quietness, discovered by fixed looks, weeping
eyes, or sorrowful or joyful countenances;"* others began to lift up their voices aloud, some softly, some in
piercing cries; at one time the whole multitude seemed
to break into a flood of tears, when the preacher's voice
could scarce be heard for the weeping around him. Many
hid their faces and sobbed, others lifted up their voices
in an ecstacy and praised God. At moments a deep
spontaneous amen arose from all those thousands as from
one voice. One or two, not women only, but strong men,
sank down as if smitten to the earth by lightning; and
these were borne away, sometimes insensible, sometimes
convulsed as if with inward agony.
There was a hymn after the sermon. I shall never
forget its power. It seemed as if the sluice gate had
suddenly been opened, and the whole pent-up emotion
throughout that great silent, listening assembly burst
forth at once in a flood of fervent singing.
"Yield to me now, for I am weak,
But confident in self-despair.
Speak to my heart, in blessings speak,
Be conquered by my instant prayer,
Speak, or thou never hence shalt move
And tell me if thy name is love.
* V'id Letter I f Ralph Erskine in Wesley's Journal.




258               THE DIARY OF
"T is love!'t is love I thou diedst for me.
I hear thy whisper in my heart;
The morning breaks, the shadows flee,
Pure universal love thou art
To me, to all, thy bowels move,
Thy nature and thy name is love."
1 o hear that hymn so sung by thousands who but for
Mr. Wesley might never have known a joy higher than
those of brutes that perish, was a joy such as I would
have walked, barefoot, a hundred miles to share. And
then afterwards to see those whose feelings overcame
their natural reserve, going up to Parson Wesley for one
shake of his hand, one word of encouragement or welcome, to which they. could only respond by a sobbing,
" The Lord bless you," or tears without any words at all;
and others lingering to pour out the grief of consciences
awakened to see their sins, but not yet seeing the remedy;
and to observe Mr. Wesley's kindly: patient, discriminating words for each! As Father said, when in the
gathering dusk we were riding away among the slowly
dispersing multitudes (who seemed scarcely able to tear
themselves away)," Men who do not know him may talk lightly of those
multitudes, as a bragging boy at home may talk lightly
of a battle. But, right or wrong, it is no light matter.
There is power in these words, as there is in a battery,
or a thunder-storm; and Kitty," he continued softly to
me, as I sat on my pillion behind hijm, "I believe, in my
soul, it is power from heaven. So help me God, I will
ne er say a word against those men again."




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYA.Y           259
The next evening when we sat around the fire, Mother
said gently in answer to our description of the scene," I am only afraid that all this excitement will pass
away, and leave the poor people colder and harder than
it found them."
Father replied," Mother, you are as good a woman as there is in the
world, and a very gentle touch would set you in the way
to heaven; but I tell you some people want a wrench,
enough to part soul from body to drag them out of the
way to hell. Why, but for such preaching as this ninetenths of those people would never have prayed except
for a' godsend' in the shape of a wreck, and'would scarcely
have thought of a church except as a place to be married
in or buried near."
" Well, my dear," replied Mother, "we shall see.'By
their fruits ye shall know them. "'" My dear," exclaimed Father, becoming rather irritated', "I have seen. I do call it good fruit for ten thousand people to be weeping for their sins, as people commonly weep for their sorrows, and to feel if it were only
for that one hour that sin is the worst sorrow, and the
pardon of God and his love the greatest joy."
"And if only ten of the ten thousand believe that truth
and live by it for ever, Aunt Trevylyan," said Evelyn," is
not that fruit?"
" Yes," said Mother gently, but not very hopefully. "I
am very old-fashioned. But I confiess I am afraid of
conventicles."




260               THE DIARY OF
But afterwards when she was expressing the same
dread of religious excitement, and these good feelings
passing away, to Betty; Betty replied,"Bless you, Missis, of course it'11 pass away, ninetynine hundredths of it.  And so does the rain from
heaven, goes back to the sea and down into the rocks, and
no one knows where. But the few drops that don't pass
away make the fields green, and bring the harvest."
Every other Sunday evening through the winter a few
of our poor neighbours have long been used to gather
round the fire in the hall, while Mother reads parts of
the evening service, especially the psalms and lessons,
with such bits as she thinks they can understand out of
the homilies or some of our few Sunday books. We are
too far from the church to attend it always twice, and too
far for the aged and sickly of our neighbours to attend it
at all; besides, the fact of the walk to church being one of
the stormiest we have. Father says he thinks the legends
are right enough in attributing to the Devil the choice of
the sites of many of our Cornish churches, for they seem
placed exactly where it is hardest to get at them.
Last Sunday was the first day this winter our little
congregation had assembled. Father had generally found
it necessary at such times to be busy about the farm, but
this evening he kept hovering in an unsettled way about
the room, while Mother, also in an unsettled and nervous
state, turned over the leaves of the Prayer-Book. At last
she called him to her, they spoke for a moment or two




MnRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.            261
Poftiy together, and when the poor old men and women
came straggling in I saw a look of surprise on many faces
as they whispered to each other," The Captain's going to be parson to-night!"
There was a little tremor in his clear, deep, manly
voice as he began,"Dearly beloved brethren;" but when he knelt down
with us and said,"Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and
strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep," the tremulousness
had passed, and deep and firm came out the words of
confession and prayer.
When the evening hymn was sung (and I never enjoy
the evening hymn as on those Sundays when'those poor
old quavering voices join us in it), and the neighbours
had gone, no one made any remark on the change.
Mother sat very quiet all the evening. But now and
then her eyes were glistening, and when, as she went to
bed, Cousin Evelyn said, mischievously," Dear Aunt Trevylyan, I like your little conventicle
very much."
Mother did not defend herself; she only said," I am not too old to learn, Evelyn, and, certainly, not
too old to have much to learn. But God forbid I should
be setting my feeble hand against any good work of His."
And from Mother such words as these mean much.
Much as Cousin Evelyn admires cur wild coast scenery,




262              THE DIARY OF
her favourite excursions are to the cottages of the fishermen and miners in the hamlets around us.
To-day we went to see old Widow Treffry, Toby's
mother. Her cottage lies alone near the entrance of a
little sheltered cove guarded by very high cliffs, the
points of which the sea has worn into fantastic pinnacles,
divided by whirlpools of seething waters from the shores.
In the calmest weather the, steady pressure of the tide
through those narrow twisted channels, makes them a
perpetual battle-field; the contending waves, writhing in
a deadly embrace, dashing each other high into the air
in jets and flashes of foam, or charging the black rocks
with their thundering cannonade, to recoil from their
jagged edges in cascades into the black cauldron below,
and be sucked back in a gurgling death-struggle by the
retreating wave. But in storms, when winds enter into
the strife, the conflict is fearful indeed, as many a brave
ship has proved, her strong timbers shivered into a thousand fragments in the mere by-play of the fierce strife of
the elements with each other.
Strange relics are washed up on the white sands at
the head of the little creek n6ar Widow Treffry's cottage, and no one wonders much to see a quaint patchwork
of the produce and manufactures of various nations, in the
rude little dwelling. Rare Indian woods, and mahogany
from Honduras, which would be the pride of Aunt Beauchamp's saloons, are mingled with the old deal tables
and chairs.
During the last year or two the old woman has recovered




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAY.             263
her strength sufficiently to creep once more about her
cottage. This morning we found her in a very rare
attitude for her, thrifty, stirring old creature that she is.
She was crouching close to the fire with her elbows on
her knees, while from the chamber within came every
now and then the sound of a low moan.
"Is it the rheumatism again, granny?" I said.
" Worse than that, worse than that, Mrs. Kitty," she
moaned, scarce moving or noticing either of us. "Toby's
gone mazed, clean mazed, all through the Methodists.
He came home from one of their preachings last week
like one out of his mind, and so he's been ever since;
bellowing like a bull one hour, and moaning like a sick
baby the next. He says it's all along of his sins. And
what they be worse than other folk's I can't see at all!
The Lord is merciful, and if He sends us a' godsend' now
and then, He surely means us to be the better of it. It
was not us who raised the storm. And Toby never set a
false light upon the rocks, nor gave any man a push back
into the sea, like some other folks. And if, as he keeps
crying out, he did'nt take the pains he might, always, to
bring the drowned to life, it can't be expected we should
do the same for Indians and Popish foreigners as for
our own flesh and blood. Would they do more for us?
And if he has picked up a stray bit of good luck now
and then, were we to save things for the dead, or for
the folks from London who come prowling about where
they've no business, with their pens and paper, to rob
them who've got the natural right to what the Almighty




264               THE DIAR Y OF
sends on the shore? Yesterday I got Master Hugh to
him, and he prayed like an angel, and did him a sight
of good for the time, but to-day he's worse than ever, he's
gone clean mazed, and swears he'll go and give up everything he ever got from a wreck to the justices. And that,"
continued the old woman, breaking into a wail, " that's
what I call throwing the Almighty's gifts back in His face."
At this moment Toby's face appeared at the door of
the inner chamber, pale, and haggard, and wild. But
his voice was quite calnm and steady as he said,"Mrs. Kitty, I told Master Hugh, and he said it was
the right thing to do, and Parson Wesley said the same,
when I heard him on the moors. He said the Bible
speaks of' the fire,' and of'their worm,' and that that
means that every sinner who is lost in hell will have
his own torment made out of his own sins. And he said
that worm begins to gnaw at our souls now when we
are wakened up to feel our sins. And the words had
scarcely left his mouth, Mrs. Kitty, when there was
the gnawing begun in my heart! And it has never
stopped since. And if it has made me faint away like a
sick woman with the anguish, and has most driven me
mazed in a week, what would it be for ever? For Parson
Wesley said there's no fainting away, ahd no going
mazed in hell. We shall always be wide awake to feel
the torment. But, Mrs. Kitty, he said there is a way
of escape now for all, and for me. He said there is a
way to have our sins forgiven. He said the Almighty
gives his pardon as free as air, and the blood of the




MRS. KITTY TREVYL TAN              265
Lord can wash all the sins of the world whiter than
snow. But he and Master Hugh both say, the Lord sees
us through and through, and there's no way of making
Him believe we are sorry for our sins but by giving
them up, and making up for them as far as we can.
They say sin and hell go together and can't be parted,
nohow. So I've nought to do but to go to the justices."
Evelyn was deeply moved, and when we reached
home and told Mother, she wept many tears, and said
at length as she wiped her eyes,"Kitty, my dear, I cannot make out about the rubrics
and the canons. They were made by very holy men;
and Mr. Wesley does not seem to mind them as one
would wish, and I cannot think it wise to set ignorant
men up to preach and teach. But his words are those
of the Prayer-Book and Bible. And his works are those
of an angel sent from God. And what can we do but
give God thanks."
" I used to be afraid," she continued, after a pauses
"that Mr. Wesley's was blind fanatical zeal, well meant
but misguided; but the zeal cannot surely be fanatical
which spends itself in labours of love; nor blind since
it leads so many into the light."
" Mr. Wesley says," responded Evelyn, "that true zeal
is but the flame of love, and that all zeal is false which
is full of bitterness, or has not love for its inspiration."
And Mother said, thoughtfully, —
" His zeal will certainly stand that test. God forbid
that ours should not."




VIII.
T is a trouble, certainly, about Hugh and the
parish, and I don't think it helps me at all to
try and think it is not. Because I have tried
to persuade myself that we could be quite as happy and
as useful elsewhere, and have succeeded again and again;
yet it always comes back how dear the old home is, and
how the people love " aster Hugh," and how impossible
it is for any one to be to them what he could, or for him
to be to others what he is to them.
So that I have come to the conclusion that it is best to
confess to Hugh and to myself that it is a trouble, and
rather a great trouble, and to confess this also to God,
and then, with all my heart, to trust myself and mine to
Him and to submit.
I have also felt much perplexed as to what submission
really is, whether we ought really to like all that happens
to us, as well as to take it without complaining.
But Hugh says submission does not mean that we are
to call bitter things sweet, or to try to feel them so, but
that we are to take them, however we dislike them, with(266)




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             267
out a murmur, being sure that the bitterest are really
good because God sends them.
We are to yield up our hearts a living sacrifice to God,
he says, with all their joys, and sorrows, and fears, and
hopes, just as they are; not dried into insensibility, or
frozen from a fountain of life and feeling to an icy conglomeration of principles.
He says it is a good test to ask ourselves in any trial,
"if we could, would we take the choice out of God's
hands into our own?"
And I do find this test comforting, for if God were to
say to us this very day, " Choose which you think best,"
I do feel sure both Hugh and I would say from our inmost hearts, " Lord, we cannot see what is best. Do
Thou choose for us." And He has chosen for us without
offering us the choice; and that, after all, is just the same.
It was a very bright future that seemed to spread out
before us, when poor Dr. Spencer died. We had so
many plans, Hugh and I, for getting at every cottage in
the parish, and ministering to the sick and aged, and collecting the children to teach them, and inducing the men
and women to come to church. I pictured the old church
full of earnest attentive faces, such as we had seen at
Gwennap Pit, drinking in the " words of this life" from
Hugh's lips, and " in their eagerness and affection ready
to eat the preacher," as Mr. Wesley said.
And Mother there too, and Father, and by and by
Jack, —all in the old pew Sunday after Sunday, receiving
help and comfort from Hugh's words I




268               THE DIARY OF
But I must not think of it now. It is a great blessing
Mother does not think so badly of the Methodists as she
used, or it would have been a terrible sorrow to her to
know that Hugh had lost the living because the patron
had heard he had "a dangerous leaning to the Methodists."
Cousin Evelyn is especially indignant because the clergyman appointed instead of Hugh is her great-uncle, the
Fellow of Brazennose, who has exchanged a living in the
east of London for this. She says he is a mere dry scholar,
and only looks on human beings in general as a necessary
but very objectionable interruption to books.
Men and women, she says, begin to be interesting to
him when they have been dead aboht a thousand years,
and his sermons will probably be either elementary treatises on the impropriety and danger of stealing, and resisting magistrates, or acute dissections cf the controversies of the Anti-Nicene centuries, which Betty will have
to apply as best she can.
Hugh told me first of this appointment when we were
alone. We had walked to our own dear old cave. The
tide was very low, and we had wandered on over the
sparkling sand almost to the very entrance of the little
bay. The ebbing waves broke feebly on the shore as if
they felt the struggle hopeless, and only continued it
with a kind of sullen courage, as a warfare they had to
wage whether it succeeded or not.
And as we paced up and down there Hugh told me of
the change which makes all our future uncertain. But




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             269
he told it me in such a way as made me feel, I scarcely
know how, a kind of sad pleasure. I felt it was the first
trial we had had to bear together. And it is certainly a
wonderful help in trouble to have some one else for whom
we must try to lighten it. Besides, Hugh's presence is
such a help and comfort, that it is only since he has left
me that I have felt really what the trouble is.
After a little while he said," Kitty, do you remember that evening in the ship on
our way from Bristol, when I spoke of God's calling us
to preach His gospel to those who never had heard it?"
I remembered it but too well, and the recollection
seemed to benumb me; the three calls he had spoken of;
the call in God's Word to proclaim it, of His voice in the
heart, and the call of His providence. The last only had
been wanting then. It flashed on me, only too clearly,
that nothing was wanting now.
" So many can do the work at home, Kitty," he said,
"and po few have health, or leisure, or means for the
work abroad; and since the one place in the world which
was home to us, to which we had ties it seemed wrong
voluntarily to break, is closed-what ought I do?"
"Oh, do not ask me to decide, Hugh!" I said, "only
decide, and I shall be sure it is right."
"It is a sacrifice we can only make together, Kitty," he
said.
"I cannot leave Mother and Father alone, Hugh," I
said, "now that Mother is so feeble, that we may wander
about the world together."
12




270              THE DIARY OF
"It would be little sacrifice to me, Kitty," he said in
a very low voice, "if you would."
We did not speak for some minutes. I felt how truly
the sacrifice was for us both, and how very great it was.
At last I commanded my voice to say," Hugh, I cannot judge what is right for you, because
I cannot know what you feel; but if you do indeed feel
that God is telling you to do this, then it is simply duty
and obedience to do it, and it must, of course, be done.
And my duty is to help you as much as I can. And I
will, Hugh," I said, " and may God help us both."
Then Hugh said a great deal in my praise; I do not
mean many words, but a great deal in a few words, about
my being fit to be a great hero's wife, and about no man
having ever been given such a brave tender heart to sustain and inspire him as mine.
And I am afraid I was foolish enough to believe what
he said, not remembering how much I have always to put
down to his love, and not to my excellence. For I did
actually begin to feel myself quite a heroine, until Hugh
went away, and I came into the kitchen and saw Betty
polishing up one of the old oaken chairs Hugh and I had
foraged out from the lumber-room for our home that was
to be. And that broke down all my high courage at
once and sent me to my chamber to cry bitterly, all by
myself, and to learn what kind of a heroine or hero's
wife I should make.
And that is a week since, yet I have never found
courage to tell Mother of Hugh's purpose, or scarcely to




MIi/. KITTY TREVYLYAL.         271
look at the rooms which were to have been Hugh's and
mine.
I have told Evelyn, however, and she enters into it
with all the noble enthusiasm of her character. Cousin
Evelyn, indeed, would have made a wife for a hero, or a
heroine in her own person. She talks beautifully of the
wonderful joy of teaching the truth that makes the
heart free to the poor slaves in the West Indies, and of
preaching the life-giving gospel to the American colonists
who have never prhaps heard of it except as a faint
echo of what their forefathers were taught. There are
scarcely twenty clergymen, she says, in all the southern
colonies, and many of those are men who have taken
refuge there, because their characters were too bad for
them to remain in England any longer. And then, she
says, there are the convicts, our outcast countrymen,
working out their sentences beside the negroes in the
plantations.
"I Iow they must want the consolations of the truth,"
she said, "and what a glorious destiny to carry it to them."
Cousin Evelyn seems to feel for these people and their
wants as if she had seen them. But it is always so
difficult for me to feel anything like real love and interest
for masses of unknown people. If I had seen one of
those poor slaves, had known the temptations and sins
of one of those poor convicts, it would be so different.
And here at home I know every man, woman and child,
and it was such a delight to think of Hugh teaching and
helping them all.




172               THE DIARY OF
When the Bible says "God loved the world," it
means that he knows and loves every individual man,
woman, and child in it, loves and pities each one according to the needs, and character, and sorrows of each.
But we? When we talk of loving a whole mass of
people in America, of not one of whom we know anything, what does it mean? If half of them were to be
swallowed up by an earthquake I might be sorry for the
rest; but I should not shed as many real tears as if anything melancholy were to happen to Betty or Roger.
And our hearts do not beat quicker for hearing of their
prosperity and joys.
To hear that thousands of them really repented and
had found forgiveness and peace through believing in
our Lord Jesus Christ, would certainly give me great
pleasure; but it would scarcely make my whole heart
glad as it would to know that poor Toby Treffry was
able to rejoice in his Saviour, and was proving the sincerity of his repentance by doing all the good he could.
I ventured to speak of this, a few days since, to Hugh.
I am afraid it is such a great defect in me not to be able
really to love a multitude of people I have never seen,
as other Christians seem to do. But Hugh did not seem
much troubled, he only said," Kitty, our Father in heaven really loves those multitudes, each one of them. Our Saviour shed real tears
over such, and really died for them all. And you love
Him. Is not that enough to make you care to help
them?"




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAIY.            273
And that helped me; for I feel that is enough. It
would have been reward for any toil or any sacrifice to
cause one look of joy to beam on the face of our Saviour
when it was buffeted and crowned with thorns for us.
And He is the same, and the joy of pleasing Him the
same now.
I have told Mother Hugh's purpose of going as an
evangelist to America. And she is not displeased. She
says she has often wondered how it was that the kingdom of Christ has not seemed to spread for so many
years; that it should be limited to one quarter of the
world when all the rest are still lying in darkness. She
even said that she would have thought it her greatest
glory that a son of hers should have gone on such an
errand to the outcast, and wretched, and lost.
Cousin Evelyn has been urging much that we should
all return with her to London. She says dear Mother
has a very delicate and suffering look, and she feels sure
some of the learned physicians Aunt Beauchamp knows
could restore her to health, since there seems nothing
dangerous the matter. Moreover, change of air, she
says, works wonders, especially with a little troublesome
unconquerable cough shch as Mother has.
Betty, on the other hand, is very much opposed to the
move. She says it is a plain flying in the face of Providence. The Almighty, she says, knows what is the matter with Missis, and He can cure her, if she is to be




2 74              THE DIARY OF
cured, and if not, all the journeys from one end of the
world to the other will do nothing but wear out her
strength the sooner. Least of all should she expect any
good thing to come out of London, which she considers
a very wicked place, where people dress in purple and
scarlet, and fare sumptuously every day.
She knows indeed, sure enough (this in answer to my
humble remonstrances), that we are to " use the means;"
but she will never believe that it is using the means to
fly all over the country, like anything mazed, after doctors. There is peppermint and horehound, and a sight
more wholesome herbs which the Almighty has set at
our doors. And there's a doctor at Falmouth who has
blooded, leeched, and blistered all the folks for fifty
years; and if the folks haven't all got better, there's
some folks that never will get better if you blooded and
blistered them for ever. She says also that there is
plenty against doctors in the Bible, and nothing for them
that ever she saw. King Asa got no good by seeking
after them, and the poor foolish woman in the Gospels
spent all her living on them and was nothing better,
but rather worse. She hopes it may not be the same
with Missis, although if it were, she adds significantly,
it is not Missis she should blame, poor, dear easy soul I
Nevertheless Evelyn has carried her point, and in a
week we are to start.
To-day Hugh and I went to bid Widow Treffry goodbye. She was out, but we found Toby c(owering over




MRS. IKITTY l'REVYLTAN.          275
the fire in much the same hopeless attitude as Evelyn
and I had found his mother. He had been to the jus
tices, he said, and given up the purse, but he was no
better.
"Master Hugh," he said, in a hollow, dry voice, which
made me think of the words, " All my moisture is turned
into the drought of summer," "Master Hugh I I do believe that poor hand that clutched the purse was dead I
They say dead hands do clutch fast like that. But yet,
I'd give the world to have that poor lad's body on the
sands again, just to bring it up to the fire and chafe it
as mother did father's when he was brought home
drowned. All her chafing and wailing never brought
father's eyes to open again.  And it mightn't that poor
lad's. Oh, Master Hugh, the devils may say what they
will, but I do think it wouldn't. But oh, I'd give the
world to try."
" Toby," said Hugh, very gently, stooping down, taking both his hands, so that his face was uncovered, and
he looked up,-" Toby, you will never see that poor
lad's face on the sands again."
"Don't I know that, Master Hugh I" said Toby, with
almost a sob of agony.
" Suppose that poor lad was not quite dead," Hugh
continued, "and you might have brought him to life,
what would your crime be?"
" Oh, don't make me say the word, Master Hugh,"
said the poor fellow. "I can't, I can't, though the devils
seem yelling it in my ears all night."




276              THE DIARY OF
" It would have been murder!" said Hugh, very distinctly and slowly, in a solemn tone.
Toby trembled in every limb, his eyes were fixed, and
he opened his lips but could not bring out a word. Convulsively he sought to pull his hands from Hugh's grasp
as if to hide his face from our gaze. But Hugh held
him fast, and he looked at him with steadfast kind eyes.
"It would have been murder!" he repeated. "But
there is pardon even for murder. The thief on the
cross had committed murder, I have no doubt, for he
felt crucifixion no more than he deserved. King David
had committed murder and meant to do it. Listen how
David prayed when he felt as you do."
And Hugh repeated the fifty-first Psalm. As he spoke
the fixed look passed from Toby's face. He was listening, the words were penetrating. When Hugh came to
the verse, " Purge me with hyssop, and'I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow," he said," The
hyssop was an herb with which the blood of the slain
sacrifices was sprinkled on the guilty. That prayer is
clearer to us, Toby, than it was to King David, for since
then the Lord Jesus has really offered himself up for us,
and His blood cleanseth us from all sin, and cleanses us
whiter than snow, so that we may start afresh once
more." And then he repeated on to the end of the
Psalm.
"There is forgiveness, you see, even for murder. Suppose it possible that the Tempter is right, Toby, in whispering that terrible word to your conscience. Yet he is




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             277
not right when he says'there is no forgiveness for you.
That is the lie with which he is seeking to murder your
soul. You must meet whatever terrible truth he says,
by laying your heart open to God and confessing all to
Him, and you must meet the Devil's lie with the truth,'The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.' There
is nothing else that can, and I am sure if you do this the
Devil will flee, and you will overcome and be saved."
We knelt down and prayed together, and as we rose
Toby gasped out, " God bless you, Master Hugh! You
do think that there is hope!"
Before we went, Hugh found Widow Treffry's Prayer
Book and set Toby to learn the fifty-first Psalm. When
we left, he was sitting toiling at it, spelling it over as if
it had been a letter written fresh from heaven for him.
I hope I was not abrupt and harsh," he said, as we
walked home, "but I felt the poor fellow's anguish was
too real to be lightly cured, that the only chance was to
probe it to the bottom. It is a blessing for Toby that
reading is such hard work for him. Every verse he
reads costs him more labour than carrying a heavy load
up from the shore. The work will bring calm to his
poor bewildered mind, so that he will be better able to
estimate what his sin really is. And the words I do
trust will bring peace to his poor tossed heart."
And Hugh and I were to have spent our lives in
bringing such help and comfort to our neighbours in
their sorrows and bewilderments I But I will not murmur. If I could see all the way instead of only a step,




278               THE DIARY OF
I should wish things to be as God orders them, so I will
trust Him who does see all the way.
A letter has come at last from Jack. It is short, and
full of the most exuberant spirits. He has. been in one
or. two skirmishes which he describes.at some length.
He is only longing for a battle. Hitherto his adventures
have only brought him a scratch or two, a little glory,
and some friends. He mentions one-or two young noblemen as his intimate companions, at whose names Evelyn
looked doubtful. She says they had the reputation in
London of being very wild, and one of them is a notorious gambler. He finds his pay, he says, very nearly
sufficient so far with prudence, and the kind parting
gifts he received at home. A young officer, he says,
and the son of an old Cornish house, must not be outdone by upstart fellows, the sons of cockney tradesmen;
and if he is now and then a little hehindhand, some good
luck is sure soon to fall in his way, and set all right.
He has not yet made his fortune. But there are
yet cities to be won, and after all, he remarks, there
are nobler aims in life -than to make fortunes. In a
postscript he adds," Tell Kitty that some of her friends the Methodists
have found their way to Flanders. Some of those
fellows have actually hired a room where they preach
and sing psalms, and make loud, if not'long' prayers to
their hearts' content. They are, of course laughed at
unmercifully and get pretty rough usage front their com



MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK.             279
rades, which they receive as their portion of martyrdom,
due to them by apostolical succession, and seem rather to
glory in. But we must give even the Devil his due, and
I must say that one or two of the best officers we have,
and our colonel among them, will not have them reviled.
Our colonel made quite a sermon the other day to some
young ensigns who were jeering at a Methodist sergeant.' Keep your jests till you have smelt as much powder and
shot as he has,' said the colonel, and as we were turning
away, he continued, At Maestricht I saw one of them
(poor Stamforth) shot fatally through the leg; he had
been a ringleader in vice before he became a Methodist,
and as his friend was carrying him away (for they stick
to each other like brothers), the poor dying fellow uttered
not a groan, but said only, " Stand fast in the Lord."
And I have heard them, when wounded, cry out, "I am
going to my Saviour l" or, "Come, Lord Jesus, come
quickly I" Wheil Clements, one of their preachers, had
his arm shot off, he would not leave the battle; he said,
"No, I have another arm to hold my sword; I will not
go yet."  When a second shot broke his other arm,
he said, " I am as happy as I can be out of Paradise." I
saw the preacher, John Evans, laid across a cannon to
die, both his legs having been shot off, and I heard him
praising God, and calling on all to love Him, till he could
speak no more. I call that a brave death for any man.
Indeed,' said the colonel,'it might be better for all of us,
if we were more like them.  Drinking and dicing may
be very gentlemanly amusements,, but.they don't make




280               THE BDIARY OF
quite so good a preparation for a battle or an hospitalbed as the psalm-singing and preaching you despise. At
least,' he added, rather sarcastically,'not for privates
and non-commissioned officers. It is easier at all events
to collect the men from the meeting-house than from the
tavern, and on the whole their hands are steadier. But
however that may be, in my regiment I choose to have
religious liberty.' And," concluded Jack, " some of the
young officers went away looking rather foolish, for there
had been a little difficulty in our last affair, in collecting
officers who were sober enough to lead the men. And
we all know our colonel is not a man to be trifled with."
"I am glad Jack has such a commanding officer," said
Father. "But as to those Methodists, Kitty, they seem
to overrun the world, like the locusts."
To-morrow we are to start for London, Mother and
Father, and Hugh and I.'It is getting late, but I must write down a few words
Cousin Evelyn has just said, before I pack up my Diary,
because they have made me so thankful and happy.
We had been speaking about dear Mother's illness,
and about the journey.
Cousin Evelyn said,"Do you remember, Cousin Kitty, my being so
shocked at your idea of praying about a love letter? I
have learned since then, we may pray about everything.
And when I do, Kitty, nothing seems too great to do or




MRS. KITT1 TREVYLYAN.             281
to bear, or too little for God to care for. Often I have,
been lost in wonder at seeing such majesty as His stoop
to such requests as mine. But since I have been with
you," she continued, "I wonder at it less."
" Wonder less at the condescension of God?" I said.
"Yes, Kitty," she, said, "I wbnder less and adore
more. For in your home I have learnt more of what
love is than I ever knew before. And I see that love
explains everything. It is no wonder that love should
stoop to any care or rise to any sacrifice.  The only
wonder is the love-that God should love us. But He
does, and that explains all." Then she took my hands
in hers, and fixed her large dark eyes on me with that
soft wistful look which always goes so far into my heart,
and she said, "Oh, Kitty, how much you have taught
me 1"
"Taught you, Cousin Evelyn," I said; "why you have
more thoughts in a day than I have in a year."
"You dear, foolish, wise, little Kitty!" she said, "as
if thoughts made people wise I Do you not know that
there is more power and more wisdom in one true loving heart than in all the wise heads in the world? Yes,
more power," she added, " for compared with love things
are mere shadows; we really possess nothing except as
love inspires us to use it, and compared with love thoughts
themselves are only the mere inanimate things that are
moved; whilst love is the wind, the fire, the sun, that
moves and quickens all; the motive force, the life-giving
power of the world."




282              THE DIARY OF
Our journey to London was like a holiday trip all the
way, after Aunt Beauchamp's coach met us at Plymouth.
It was stored by the special care of Aunt Beauchamp's
housekeeper, with a travelling larder of plum-cake,
Dutch gingerbread, Cheshire cheese, Naples' biscuit,
neat's tongues, cold boiled beef; with bottles of usquebaugh, black cherry brandy, cinnamon water, and strong
beer, to which were added sundfy homely manufactures
of Betty's in the shape of pasties and pies, and a private
store of Mother's containing various wholesome and
medicinal herbs. Two old servants had been sent on
horseback to guard us from the dangers of the way;
and two Flemish cart-horses were added to the four
sleek carriage-horses to pull our massive machine up the
Devonshire hills, or out of the deep ruts in the miry
roads through the marshy grounds of Somersetshire. In
addition to our escort, Hugh rode beside us armed with
two pistols, and Father, inside the coach with us, carried
a loaded cavalry pistol, so that we could have opposed a
formidable front even to a combined attack of mounted
highwaymen. We met, however, with no adventure
beyond being once or twice nearly " stugged," as Roger
would say, in the mud, and once or twice being, as he
would believe, "piskyled" and missing our way, and
being belated on the moors.
Mother's conscience was rather disturbed by the pomp
in which we travelled, especially when the landlords and
landladies came bowing and courtesying to receive " her
ladyship's orders."




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.            283
"Kitty, my derr," she said, "I really think I ought
to tell them this is not our coach. I feel like an imposter."
She was consoled, however, by the reflection that but
for a few accidents as to priority of birth, Father might
have been riding, by his own right, in a coach quite as
magnificent; wherefore for his sake she abstained from
such confessions. And' during our brief stay at the
various inns she generally penetrated deep into the medical confidences of chambermaids and landladies, so that
by the time we reached London her store of bitters and
lotions had sensibly diminished.
We did not enter the city till midnight, by which time
the street-lamps are all extinguished; so that we plunged
into the deep puddles and ruts, in spite of our huge
coach lanterns and two volunteer link boys, who terrified
-Mother by flaring their torches at the windows. Once
or twice her terrors were increased by encountering some
noisy parties of gentlemen returning drunk-from various
entertainments, and showing their valour by knocking
down the poor old watchmen, or wrenching off the streetknockers. One of these parties actually surrounded our
coach, armed with pistols, bludgeons, and'cutlasses, with
hideous yells and demoniacal laughter; when Father
(Hugh having left us), taking them for highwaymen, presented his cavalry pistols, with some very strong military
denunciations, at the head of one, demanding to know
their names, whereupon the whole company decamped,
leaving Father in great wrath at the c(nstables, the




284              THE DIARY OF
King's ministers, and the whole "sluggish Hanoverian
dynasty."
At length we arrived at Great Ormond Street to
Mother's unspeakable relief. She recommended me to
add to my devotions selections from the Form of Thanksgiving after a Storm with that after Victory or Deliverance from an Enemy; "for certainly, Kitty, my dear,"
she said, "at one time I thought we were in the jaws of
death, and gave all for lost-our goods and even our
lives. And now being in safety, we must give all praise
to Him who has delivered us."
Hugh and I had more than one quiet talk by the way.
The last was one evening when we had arrived at an inn
early in the day, and were taking a walk in a wood near
at hand, when the first primroses were beginning to dart
up little golden flames through the earth. We wdre
speaking of Jack's letter,,and I was saying how his
principles about money troubled me, and especially his
delusion of imagining it is generosity to spend more than
you have, and then beg of other people.
Hugh said," It is very difficult for people to be convinced of faults which go with the grain of their character.- If a man of tender feelings says an unkind word,
it rankles in his conscience for days; while a hard man
inflicts a score of wounds in a day on his family and dependents, and never has a reproachful pang. A truthful
person will not be easy until he has repaired an accidental inaccuracy, whereas a man who habitually boasts.
and exaggerates, tells a hundred lies or conveys a thou



MRS. KIh'TY TREYYL YAN             285
sand false impressions in a day, and never feels a weight
on his conscience. I suppose a miser who has been grinding as much out of every one he can all his days, living
for nothing but to make his hoards more and more, and
safer and safer, lies down at night pitying his foolish
extravagant brother, and thanking God that he has not
the love of money which led his poor tempted neighbour
to forge a bank-note. It is easy to repent of the sins
which some temptation has led us into against the current
of our character; but it does seem as if nothing but
Almighty power could make us feel the sins which go with
the current of our characters. And yet this is exactly
what constitutes our sin."
"I am so afraid, Hugh," I said, "that Jack actually
prides himself on being an open-handed, generous fellow,
just on the strength of what seems to me his most selfish
acts. And what is to awaken him?"
" Only One Voice can," he replied, gravely, " and no
one can say how. Sometimes people are aroused to the
sense of their habitual sins by falling into some sin
which is against their habits; sometimes by a revelation
of the true excellence of which their fault is the parody."
"But," I said, " what you say about our ignorance of
ourselves is really fearful. How can we ever know ourselves really?"' I do not know that we ever can," he said, " any more
than we could heal ourselves if we did. There is one
prayer which seems to me the only fathoming-line for our
hearts.-' Search me and try me, and see if there be any




286              THE DIARY OF
wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.'
God hears us, and with His dews and His storms He
does search our hearts, and sweeps and cleanses every
corner. Our poor brooms," he added, " only transfer the
dust from one corner to another, and often blunderingly
remove the soil with the refuse. But God's rains and
winds make the ground fruitful as well as pure. That
very primrose, Kitty," he said (pointing to one which was
springing out of the cleft bf an old tree), "a trim gardener
would have broomed away the soil on which it has found
board and lodging, and impoverished the world of a
little world of beauty. Ah  no eye but God's is true
enough to search the heart, and no hand but His is
tender enough to probe it.  Therefore, the strongest
weapon which we have with which to help each other is
prayer."
It always gives me so nuch hope to talk these troubles
over with Hugh. The mere bringing one's fears into the
light is, a help, and how much more his faithful counsel I
It will be very hard to separate;. but he has obtained
Father and Mother's consent to our marriage when he
has made one or two of his missionary voyages to America. And after all, it will not be more difficult for me
than for the betrothed of a sailor or a soldier. So why
should we venture to call it a sacrifice?
Aunt Beauchamp was at first full of the most sanguine
hopes of curing Mother. She had herself (she declared)
experienced unspeakable good from a concpction called




MRS. KITTY TT_ VYL FAN.          287
" angelic snuff," which cured (at least for a time) the
most agonizing headaches, the most distressing attacks
of vapours; indeed, all and each of the various contradictory and inexplicable maladies to which her sensitive
jlerves were liable. She knew, moreover, an incomparable doctor who had effected cures that could only be
called miraculous, although the ordinary physicians and
surgeons, in their bigotry, were narrow-ninded and envious enough to ridicule him. This benefactor of his species
after driving about the provinces in a coach and six, attended by four footmen in blue and four in yellow liveries, and followed everywhere by the tears'and blessings
of the grateful multitudes, had settled in London on his
fortune; but still at the entreaties of those who knew
his worth, consented to practise in private for the benefit
of a few friends of distinction. "He one day showed
me," continued Aunt Beauchamp, "a patent from the
Sultan of Egypt, a medal from the Emperor of Persia,
and a certificate from the King of Bantam; but this was
only as an especial favour. The excellent creature has
not a particle of vanity in his composition, and sedulously
avoids all display."
This gentleman, after many entreaties, at length consented to undertake dear Mother's case.
Feeling her pulse, as Aunt Beauchamp said, "in that
inimitable manner of his, at once tender and scientific,"
and asking a few questions (evidently, Aunt Beauchamp
declared, only for form's sake, since he had already anticipated all the answers), he drew from the silken pocket




288               THE DIARY OF
of his laced azure coat a pill-box, which, he said, he had
placed there that very morning, and which contained
precisely the one only sovereign remedy for Mother's ailments.
Such penetration and prescience combined Aunt Beauchamp declared to be nothing short of inspiration.
But these laudations he modestly disclaimed as extravagant.  " The medical faculty," he admitted, " like the
poetical, like beauty (and he bowed profoundly to Aunt
Beauchamp), could not be made or called up at will.
The gift was congenital; it was incommunicable by inspiration. Beyond this he humbly disclaimed any merit.
Then, after minutely describing the nature of Mother's
symptoms in English which sounded like Latin, and
which delighted Aunt Beauchamp as much as it bewildered me, he took his leave, assuring Mother that with
time, the pills, and reliance on himself, her cure was as
good as accomplished.
But whether because Mother's reliance is not perfect
or because she is not a lady of sufficient distinction for
such sublime and sovereign remedies, or whether Betty's
medical views are right after all I cannot say; she is
worse rather than better, the noise of the streets distracts her, and Aunt Beauchamp is becoming every day
more annoyed with her for not recovering, and so doing
justice to those marvellous pills; and accordingly it is
decided that we are to move to Aunt Henderson's tomorrow.
I do not find the household in Great Ormond Street




MiSk. KITTY TRE VYL YA            289
the same as when I left. Evelyn has more to suffer at
home than she ever hinted to me; not, indeed, exactly
persecution, but little daily annoyances which are harder
to bear-those little nameless irritations which seem to
settle like flies on any creature that is patient and quiet,
as Evelyn certainly is.
Poor Aunt Beauchamp has become fretful and irritable,
and keeps up a continual gentle wail against Evelyn and
her eccentricities.  Cousin Harry, from his masculine
heights of the race-course and the gaming-table, treats
her " Methodism" with a lofty superiority as a feminine
peculiarity.
Uncle Beauchamp alternately storms and laments. He
was very seriously annoyed at her refusing the neighbouring Squire, whom she mentioned in her letter to me, and
since then has absolutely forbidden her attending any of
those "canting conventicles," as he calls the preachings
at Lady Huntingdon's, the Tabernacle, or the Foundery.
Moreover he actually made an auto-da-fe of all her religious books. But this Evelyn considers to have been
rather a help than a hindrance, as at the particular time
when her further acquaintance with this literature was
arrested, it was falling deep into fiery controversy concerning the Calvinistic and Arminian doctrines; and she
says she finds it more profitable to draw the water of
life from the source, before the parting of the streams.
By the time the streams are open to her again, she hopes
they will have met once more, and each have left its own
deposit of mud behind.




g9o              THE DIARY OF
But although I have seen her face flush and her lip
quiver often at many an unjust and bitter word, she will
by no means be pitied.
"I am so sorry for you all," I ventured to say to her
one day; "I wish you understood each other. You have
many things to suffer, dear Evelyn."
"I am no martyr, Cousin Kitty," she replied, with
something of her old scornfulness, though it was turned
on herself; and please do not try to persuade me I am.
Half my troubles are no doubt brought on by my own
willfulness, or want of tact, and the other half are not
worth calling troubles at all. I think we sometimes miss
the meaning and the good of little trials, by giving them
too long names. We bring a fire-engine to extinguish a
candle, and the candle probably burns on, while we are
drenched in our own shower. We take a sword to extract a thorn, and drive it further in. It is a great thing
to know at what page to look for our lessons, because if
we look for the multiplication-table among the logarithms,
we shall probably persuade ourselves we are. advanced
scholars, yet not,be clear about two and two making
four."
" But, Cousin Evelyn," I said, "we must not, I think,
on the other hand, call God's chastening rod a trifle, because I suppose He means it to hurt us, if it is to do us
good. - And all the time, while we are setting our faces
not to show the pain, He knows it is hurting us, and perhaps He is only waiting for us to be humbled and to sob
out our sorrow at His feet, to lay it aside and take us to




MlS. KITTY TREVYL YAN.            291
His heart. At least, Cousin Evelyn," I said, "I think I
have found it so sometimes."
She colol;red, her lip quivered, and after a little struggle with herself, she looked up with her eyes full of tears,
and said in a broken voice,"It does hurt me, Kitty, oh, so much, so terribly!
Perhaps after all it was pride and not humility that made
me try to think it did not. But I was so afraid of flattering myself that I was a martyr, and that I was suffering for my virtues and not for my faults. If you had
been in my place, Kitty," she said, "I have thought so
often you would have made them all love you and religion
together."
"Dear Evelyn," I said, " perhaps I might have made
them content with me, it is so natural to me as to all
creatures without horns, and hoofs, and stings, to creep
out of difficulties. And perhaps I might have persuaded
myself that, in escaping reproach I was recommending
religion. But our blessed Lord did not make every one
pleased either with religion or with Him. And when
we have really painful things to take up and bear, unless
we glide out of the way to avoid them, I think it ought
to help us to remember what He said about taking up
our cross."
"But Kitty," she said, "the Cross I think what it was
to Him-shame, agony, death, worse than death. Shall
I call my little discomforts crosses?"
"Jesus said, Every one rho followed Him was to take
up his cross," I said.




292              TiE DIARY OF
"He did," she replied thoughtfully. Then looking up
M ith one of her bright looks, she said,"Well, Kitty, nothing on earth shall persuade me I
should not get on better with every one, if I were better I
But perhaps some little portion of my troubles could not
be avoided; and if this is my cross, it certainly makes it
feel lighter to call it so. Remembering that if it hurts
me so much, it is not so much because it is so heavy, as
because I am such a child, and so little used to bearing
it. So, Kitty," she continued, "by no means draw my
portrait as a meek-eyed maiden bowed down under a
picturesque burden beautifully fashioned into the shape
of a cross; but as a foolish and awkward little child,
stumbling along under a load which other people could
lift with their fingers. But, 0 Kitty," she said, her whole
countenance suddenly changing into an expression almost
of anguish, "what miserable selfishness to talk of my
burdens! Think of the void, the pangs of those who are
dying from the hunger of their hearts for God, and will
not call it hunger, but'sensibility,' or'repressed gout,'
or'the restlessness of youth,' or'the irritability of old
age,' or the'inevitable worries of life,' or anything but
that great hunger of the souls God created for himself,
which proves their immortality, and proves their ruin,
and might lead them to Him to be satisfied. How am I
to help them to find it out?"
"You can pray, Cousin Evelyn, and show them your
whole soul has found that rest in God; and the time will
surely come when you may tell them how. Who knows




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             293
how many of the bitterest words come from the sorest
hearts? No doubt the writhing of his poor hands on
the nails, and the very sight of the patience of Jesus on
the cross beside him, made the reviling of the thief all
the bitterer. But in another moment that patience had
overcome: the railing was changed to-'We indeed
justly;' the reviling to-' This man hath done nothing
amiss;' the curses into-' Lord, remember me;' and the
agonizing beginning of an eternity of anguish into the-'Paradise to-day.' Ah, Evelyn," I said, "who knows
how near thejoyful answer to your prayers may b(?
who knows your cross may blossom into a tree of
life?"
She made no reply for some minutes; she had buried
her face in her hands. But when she looked up again, it
was with a look clear and solemn and awed and bright
as a child's in prayer, and she said,"Kitty, I think I understand better. Henceforth I
will not try to trip on under my burden as if it were
nothing. I will confess to myself and to God when it
wounds, and humbly ask Him to lighten or to heal. But
hope shall make my tread lighter than ever pride could.
For who knows how soon my cross may blossom into a
tree of life? It is in the nature of all crosses made from
the fragments of His, is it not?  Not; nothing, Kitty.
Our trials are not even trifles, they are the poor withering grains of a harvest of eternal joJs; they are the
fiery furnace of incorruptible graces for us, and, perhaps,
for others too."
13




294              THE DIARY OF
We are at Hackney, Father, and Mother, and I. This
grave orderly household, too, is changed.
Cousin Tom is gone. I knew he had made a voyage to
America, but until I came here I thought it was only on
some business of his father's.
But when I asked Uncle Henderson for him, he scarcely
made any answer, so that I felt something was wrong.
And the first time I was left alone with Aunt Henderson,
to my great amazement she sat down, and covering her
face, burst into a flood of tears. I think I should scarcely. ave been more surprised if it had been the stone effigy
of the lady in a ruff in our church at home, or more
entirely at a loss what to do to help her.
"Ah, Kitty," she sobbed out at length, "Kitty, child,
you loved the poor lad, you were always kind to him, and
he loved you like a sister. And I must speak. Your
uncle won't have his name mentioned. He calls him an
ungrateful wretch, an Absalom, and he says he is not
going to behave like King David in his dotage, that he
will never have him under his roof again. My poor Tom,
my boy, my only son I"
" But what has he done?" I asked; "it cannot be so
very bad."
" No I" she exclaimed, passionately, "it is not indeed,
it's your uncle's hard, cold, miserable religion that makes
him judge the poor lad as he does. Poor Tom," she wailed
again, " poor misguided lad, if I'd known better before,
he'd never have run away."'
And then she told me how he had come and openly




MRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN.          295
confessed to his father one evening about his going to
the theatre and other amusements, and having contracted
some debts, and Uncle Henderson had called him a liar
and a coward, and had wondered how many more sins
he would confess now he had begun; and how Tom had
grown crimson, and had said that if it had not been for
his Cousin Kitty and John Wesley he would never have
confessed what he had, for he believed they had true
religion, and they showed him the sin of deception, and
the little religion he had got from them was what had
given him courage to speak the truth now. And then
Uncle Henderson was more angry than ever, and said
John Wesley was an Arminian and a Jacobite, and Tom
was a thief and a hypocrite; and Tom grew very white,
and said if he had been a hypocrite he would be one no
more, that he would never set foot in those Pharisaical
meeting-houses again, nor have any more to do with a
religion which had no kind word for the: returning prodigal.; and then uncle had turned purple with anger, and
had ordered him from his presence, and dared him not
to enter his house again until he could come on his
knees and say he was ashamed and sorry, as such an
ungrateful wretch should be.
"I could say nothing, Kitty," Aunt Henderson continued, "and I was humbled and bewildered so that I
did not know what to think; but I resolved to go the
next morning to the poor lad's chamber and try to
soothe him. But when I went, oh, Kitty!" and she
broke out sobbing again, " he was gone-he was gone I




t96               H'E DIARY OF
The bed was cold —he had been gone for hours. His
chest was there, but not a thing was taken from it except
one change of linen if his little valise. On the table
was a note to me. I have kept it in my bosom ever
since."
She gave it to me to read.
" Dear Mother," it said, "we shall be best apart. I
trust my clothes and books will pay my debts if father
will sell them. (Here follows a list of the amounts
owed-not large.) You will not grieve much, I hope, at
my going, for I have been a poor comfort to you. I shall
write when I have anything good to tell you. I am
going to the American colonies. Perhaps I may yet live
to show father I am not such a wretch as he thinks me,
and to be more of a son to you than I have been.-Your
poor son,                                Tom."
" Ah, Kitty," she said, " he hoped I should not grieve.
Poor dear lad, if he had only known how I loved him I
If I could only see him for a moment to tell him. I
am afraid I made the house too dull for him, Kitty,
but I did it for the best. I thought I had kept him so
safe from temptation, and oh, I used to glory in my foolish
heart over poor Sister Beauchamp. I have little enough
to glory in now, and little to comfort me except John
Wesley's sermons, which I attended first for his sake,
poor fellow, and a talk with Aunt Jeanie and our old
gardener. They tell me very good things he said, and
we cry together over him. They loved the lad; he was
a kind lad, Kitty; all the servants loved him. Oh, I




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             297
might have won him, it might have been so different.
But it is too late now. Your uncle has taken a nephew
of his from Glasgow into partnership-a hateful, smooth,
demure man, who never laughs or looks you in the face.
And this stranger sits at our table and fares sumptuously
every day, while our Tom is working for aught I know
for a crust of.bread."
Poor Aunt Henderson! I had little comfort to offer,
but-she said it was a comfort to speak of him to one
who loves him, as I do.
Aunt Henderson is indeed much changed in many
ways. She is softened and humbled; and even more
than that her heart seems to have opened and grown.
She has become a devoted disciple of Mr. Wesley. Yet
I..cannot say her example'is altogether calculated to
recommend Methodism to dear gentle Mother, who, not
knowing how far trouble and a more humbling religion
have altered her, sees only the rather controversial
spirit, and the self-assertion which yet remain. For the
conviction that whatever she did, and believed, and said
was the one standard of right, having been rooted out
as regarded her domestic life and plans, has taken refuge
in her religion.  She is vehemently persuaded that
Methodism is not only a good thing but the one good
thing; that Mr. Wesley's arrangements about his societies and his bands, class meetings, prayer meetings,
and dress and demeanour, are the sole model left upon
earth of Scriptural piety; that his Arminian doctrine




298               THE DIARY o(F
is the truth, the one truth, which all Christians would
receive in every detail, if sin did not unhappily darken
their eyes. And since no conviction remains passive in
her mind, not only does she lay aside every ornament ao
a vestige of the corrupt world, but she deems it her
duty to bear plain testimony on the subject to all around
her. Gold and pearls and costly array are, she declares,
plainly prohibited to women professing-godliness, and
she glances significantly at the little gold brooch encircling a lock of Father's hair, with which Mother clasps
her neckerchief.  The one Scriptural decorationfor females she vehemently and authoritatively asserts is a
meek and quiet spirit. And dear Mother's own meek
and quiet spirit has certainly been sorely tried by these
attacks against the cherished keepsake which was her
one bridal gift, and is her one ornament.
Aunt Henderson's chief controversies, however, are
with the cool and demure Scotch nephew, who she declares to be at once a red-hot Calvinist, a lukewarm
Laodicean, and a frozen Antinomian. She attacks his
doctrines with bitter and fiery assertions of the universal
love of God; and he meets her. with cool and irresistible
logic about the eternal predestination and final perseverance of the saints, until between them the texts of
the Scriptures fly about more like bullets than the sweet
dews of life. The Bible seems to become no more than
a book of arithmetic, men and women the figures, heaven
or hell a kind of sum total, God himself a mere term,
and eternity a cipher to give value to the figures.




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             299
Aunt Henderson's favourite doctrine, however, is the
perfection of the saints in this life. She is very indignant with the Moravians for denying this, and declaring
that to the end of life we remain "poor sinners," in daily
need of pardon, and only safe in distrust of self. She
has several lamentable stories and very severe sayings
against this  poor sinnerism" of theirs and its consequences; although, from what Hugh told me once about
the Moravian settlement at Herrnhut, and their selfdenying labours among the slaves and outcasts abroad, if
by creed they are " poor sinners," in life they seem to be
great saints.
But this favourite doctrine of perfection is unhappily
precisely the one against which dear Mother thinks herself bound in conscience to do battle. How the love of
God to every human being is combined with the election
of grace and the perpetuity of faith in the elect, is, she
says, a great mystery which she cannot fathom, and will
not discuss. But it is no mystery at all to assert that
any poor sinful man or woman can ever in this life get
beyond the need of confession and daily absolution.
Aunt Henderson admits that she herself has never lived
under the same roof with one of the "perfect," although
she has had many pointed out to her as such in the pews
at the preaching-house.
The effect of'all this controversy on Mother is to make
ner cling more than ever," like a bewildered child" (she
says) to the arms of her dear mother the Church. At
every Lent she and I attend morning and evening prayers




300               THE DIARY OF
in a church close at hand every day, to which Aunt Henderson, as a disciple of Mr. Wesley, cannot openly object,
although she drops many strong hints about depending
on external ceremonies.
Both Mother and 1 find the quiet of the old church and
the calm lowly devotion of the old prayers very great
refreshments. It does seem to me a blessing to have
a set of beautiful fixed prayers, which cannot be turned by
the party spirit of the moment against some other section
of Christians. Because, when the makers of the PrayerBook itself had to make prayers against people (as against
the Papists, in the service for the Gunpowder Plot, and
against the rebels, in the Restoration service) they did
make them so very bitter, they sound very much like
curses.
But the controversies recorded in the Prayer-Book
were finished so very long ago that the bitterness has
faded out of the most of them for us, and in general there
is very little controversy in it except with the world, the
flesh and the Devil.
Yet I cannot help seeing that rougher and less melodious words seem needed to startle people out of their slumber, so that they may awake and learn to pray at all.
It is rather a relief sometimes when Aunt Henderson's
warfare is turned from all the misbelieving Christians
against "poor Sister Beauchamp's quack doctor," as she
irreverently calls that benevolent gentleman who failed
to cure Mother.




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAL              301
Aunt Herderson has on this subject a theory of her
own. She says it is evident folly to imagine that medicine can'be anything but nasty, and the process of being
cured anything but difficult. And this theory she has
carried out by inflicting on the patience of Mother such
a series of unpalatable nostrums and irritating applications, that yesterday Father rebelled on Mother's behalf;
and Aunt Henderson, after expressing her mind very
plainly on the consequences that ensue when people presumptuously refuse to use the means and expect (" like
the Calvinists") to get well by an irresistible decree, or
("like the Moravians") by "sitting still and doing
nothing," has subsided from a very severe physician into
a very tender nurse, overwhelming Mother with beefteas and jellies, and sick-room delicacies of every description; sparing no trouble or expense in behalf of her infatuated patient.
It is in this matter of expense that I see the greatest
change wrought on Aunt Henderson by Cousin Tom's
fight and Mr. Wesley's preaching.
With Tom she seems to have lost the object of saving.
"Why," she says, "should I hoard up for that Antinomian Scotchman, who is a Jacobite into the bargain, I
have little doubt, if he had the manliness to confess it?"
And Mr. Wesley's teaching is no mere mysticism, contemplating the heavens from a height only to be climbed
on Sundays; and no mere bristling fence of prohibitory
rules. If it is anything it is "spirit and life," inspiring
labours of love, opening the heart, and the hand, and the




302              THE DIARY OF
purse; it doe's not sell the trinket to change it into banknotes as a better investment; it does teach and inspire to
give abundantly and cheerfully, it creates a link between
rich and poor, the golden link of common faith working
by love.
The most pleasing change in Aunt Henderson's house
is in the kitchen, where the servants are now recognized,
not as a kind of animated brooms and cooking machines,
but as "sisters in the society," and where the sick and
aged- are bountifully provided for, and hospitably welcomed and fed.
I have watched Uncle Henderson very closely, and I
am not sure he does not feel Cousin Tom's departure
almost more than aunt. He is so very silent, and he
goes so much less to business; and when his nephew
brings him home tidings of the money-market, and the
state of trade, and the prospects of his ships, he listens
with a kind of forced and languid attention, so different
from his old keen though repressed eagerness about loss
and gain.
And then what makes him so peculiarly tender to
me? He was always kind. But now, when I bring
him his pipe or a footstool for his gouty foot, his voice
almost trembles as he thanks me. And he said once to
Mother that a daughter was a good gift from God.
And his hair has grown so white!
Oh I Cousin Tom has done so wrong, has made such
a terrible mistake. I am sure he will never find any




MRS., KITTY TRE YLYAN.            303
t1eal peace or good, nor really learn what the love of
God is until he humbles himself and comes back, however hard it may be; and submits..Unless indeed (for I must not presume to make predictions as to the way in which God in His wonderful
love may lead any one), he should learn first the love
and forgiveness of our Father in heaven, and then come
home to confess and amend, and learn the love of his
father on earth. For if he only did learn that, he would
learn the rest, I have no doubt.
And then we have a little secret hope of our own,
Hugh and I (for Hugh is gone; he went a week since;
but I am not yet able to sit down and write about our
parting, it was so very hard). We hope Hugh and Tom
will meet, for he knows all about Tom; and although
America is a very large place, it is not so full of people,
Hugh says, as Cornwall. And there is more chance of
people finding each other on our Cornish moors, I think,
than in this crowded London.
But it is not to chance Hugh and I trust. It made it
a little easier for me to part with Hugh, to think of this
plan of rescuing poor Cousin Tom. It makes me feel
as if he were safer-as if that loving plan wer.e a kind
of shield thrown around him.
Yet I know he has a better shield than that. And
I do not really believe God will take care of him because
he has this one good work to do, but because God loves
us both-oh so tenderly!-and because we trust and
love Him.




304               THE DIARY OF
Of all the people Mother has seen in London, she
likes Aunt Jeanie best of all. Whenever I miss her, I
always know where she is; and when I go across the
garden to dear Aunt Jeanie's bedside (she does not leave
her bed now), there I find Mother sitting beside her
singing a hymn of her beloved George Herbert's, or perhaps reading one of Aunt Jeanie's beloved Scotch psalms,
or, oftener still, the Bible.
Those two have taken a wonderful love for each other,
which it is very sweet to me to see.
One day dear Mother was expressing to Aunt Jeanie
her great perplexities at all those controversies and
divisions of which we have been hearing so much.
"-My dear Mrs. Trevylyan," said Aunt Jeanie,
" I think if we could see back through all the years, we
should find it had always been just the same. The
Apostle Paul was sore'tormented with the good people
of his time, and their bit notions and fancies. One
thought the resurrection was past already; and a stranger
fancy than that has, I consider, never yet possessed any
crazy brain among poor sinful mortal men. It is less
difficult,.surely, even to fancy ourselves or others perfect
than to fancy ourselves raised from the dead: though
I'll not say it's less dangerous. But my bairns," continued Aunt Jeanie, who, from the height of her threescore and ten, sometimes seems to confound Mother
and me in one generation,-" my brirns, I think it would
be a wonderful help in quarrels among Christians, if,




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             305
instead of trying to find out how bad each other's mistakes may be, they would try each to find out what the
other really means. Now, as to this'perfection,' Mistress Henderson bewildered me not a little when, she
began about it. But then I thought Mr. John Wesley
is a good man, and no doubt has his meaning; not so
very far out of the way, perhaps, if we could find it out.,
But he's a man of strong will, or he'd not have done
and foregone what he has; and perhaps his will has
got mixed up with his faith, and made him say more
than he would, if people had tried to understand him
right at first. And so after pondering it over, I came
to think that maybe Mr. Wesley had seen too much of
people talking of forgiveness, as if it were to make
sin easy, instead of making holiness possible, which is
no doubt, its true end-as if their faults could as little
be helped as tile rain or sunshine. And if Mr. Wesley
saw this, I can conceive his honest heart rising against
it and saying, " You are not called to keep sinning and
repenting; you are called to be holy, to be perfect. And,
what God calls you to be, he means you to be, and
will enable you to be.' And that is what I think Mr.
Wesley must mean by'perfection.' The rest followed
when he began to cut and shape his desires into a
doctrine, and to send it out bristling at all points, to
fight its way through the world. It alters a house
awfully when it is turned from a home into a fortress, as
I've seen done in my time; when the nurseries are turned
into ammunition rooms, and the fireside into a guard-room,




306               THE DIARY OF
and great guns oristle out at the windows, where the
children's faces used to smile, and the garden fences are
spiked into palisades. And it fares sometimes just as
ill with doctrines when they have to take to the wars.
You would scarcely know them again."
This was a very long speech for Aunt Jeanie; but it
comforted Mother greatly, and also what she said one
day about the great Calvinistic and Arminian controversy.
" God forbid," said Aunt Jeanie, " that I should think
His truth so low or so small as that I should see to
the bottom or to the top of it.  But I have sometimes
thought a great part of the difficulty springs simply
from people getting out of God's presence. In the
Gospels it is mostly'I' and'ye' and' now.' But when
men write theology, they make it'he' and'they' and'then,' which makes all the difference. The Lord says
to us,' Come now,'' Come ye;' and our now is to-day,
but His is eternity. I would like to hear John Wesley,"
she added, "and George Whitefield, and my early
friends of the Covenant, and yours, good Mr. Herbert and
the others on their knees-not together, Mistress Trevylyan, in a public prayer-meeting, for the prayers in public
are apt to freeze into sermons; but alone before God,
I think we should find the prayers wonderfully simple,
and wonderfully alike."
"Perhaps," said Mother, "before long it may be given
you to hear such prayers and to join them where prayers
in the company of the great multitude will be as simple
as that in solitude; and where we shall learn all we are




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             307
to know by looking, not at the past or the future, but on
the face of God I"
But when Aunt Jeanie and dearest Mother begin to
talk about heaven, it is almost more than I can bear;
their faces light up, and their voices grow deep with
such an intimate and reverent joy, that it seems as if
they must be very near it, and it always makes me
tremble.
For Mother does look very wan and thin, and does not
improve as we hoped,-in spite of all the doctors, and all
the care and change.
But Aunt Jeanie says I am one of those who always
want to be living on "a land like the land of Egypt,
which is watered by the foot." "And very wisely you
would water it all, my poor bairn no doubt," she said.
"But the Lord will not have it so," she added, taking my
hand in her dear thin old hand, and smiling on me with
her old tender smile. "The Lord will not have it so for
any of us. He will have us live in'a land that drinketh
of the rain and dew of heaven.' And although you may
have to prove hunger and drought thereby, my poor lambie," she added, solemnly looking upward with a far seeing look, as if she saw into things invisible, "you'll be
sure to find it best in the end, and one day-one day, my
sweet bairn-I shall hear you say so. And we shall turn
it into a hymn together, you and yours, and I and mine;
and it will be a hymn to which all the holy angels will
delight to listen. And as far as they can they will join
in it, asfar as they can," she added, rising as she did now




308                THE DIARY.
and then when very deeply moved it seemed almost unconsciously into prayer, "For, O Lord, thou tookest not
on thee the nature of angels; and it is we, it is we only
who can say,'Thou hast led us all that long way through
the wilderness. Thou hast humbled us and suffered us
to hunger, and fed us with manna. Thou hast redeemed
us to God by Thy blood.'"




IX.
April, 1750.
HANK God we are at home again, which a
l month since I scarcely expected to be.
At Hackney on Friday morning, March the
8th, I was startled out of my sleep in the early dusk before dawn -by a heaving and a jarring, which made me
think in the confusion of waking that I was at sea again
with Father and Hugh, and that the ship had struck
against a rock, and was grating over it.
I sprang up instantly, with a vague fear of drowning;
but I shall never forget the horror of utter helplessness
which followed, when I perceived that it was Aunt Henderson's great crimson-damask four-post bed which was
thus tottering-that it was the gigantic polished oak
wardrobe whose doors were flying open, and the familiar
white jug and bason which were rattling in that unaccountable way against each other.
It flashed on me at once that it was the earth that was
moving-the solid earth itself heaving like the sea!
My first impulse was to throw myself on my knees by
the bedside. Then I committed myself to God, and felt
there was something yet that "could not be moved."
Then followed another shock and jarring motion. The
(309)




310              THE.DTARY OF
fire-irons rattled, the water jug fell and was broken, the
wardrobe tottered and strained.  And there seemed
something more awful in the unwonted noises among
these familiar things than there would have been in the
roar of a cannonade or any other strange sound.
But besides these noises, and through, and behind, and
underneath them, came a low distant rumble like thunder,
which yet was not thunder;'not above, but beneath, for
it seemed quivering through the earth.
I sprang to my feet, and wrapping myself in my great
cloak, rushed out to Mother's room.
The frightened servants were already gathered on the
landing, crying that the end of the world was come, and
wringing their hands and wondering what would become
of mistress, who was gone to the early prayers at the
Foundry. Uncle Henderson appeared in a night-cap and
blanket, and then Father in a military great-coat.
All had rushed together with the instinct of frightened
cattle. No one had thought of striking a light.
I crept to Mother's bedside, and kneeling down, pressed
her hand in both mine.
"My darling," she said, "I am so thankful we are together. If only Jack were here, Kitty! If only I could
feel he was safe, whatever happened! Kitty, let us be
still, and pray for Jack."
For Mother thought, like most of us, that the end of
the world was come.
Another shock, and jar, and rumble of that awful underground thunder; and then a fearful crash above us,




.Xl[S. KITTY TREVYLYAN.           311
and a piercing shriek from all outside, with sobs, and
cries of " Lord, have mercy on me." Another crash, and
another burst of shrieks and sobs.
And Mother said nothing, but solemnly clasped her
hands in prayer.
Then there came a stillness and a hush in the voices
outside, and through the silence we heard the wind rustling in the tall elm-tree close to the window, and saw
that the dusk was slowly creeping into dawn.
And Mother said solemnly,"It was to be in the morning, Kitty! -At least I
always thought so. And 0 child, it must be less terrible
than death! If only I were sure about Jack! What
are lightnings and thunders, and the rolling together of
heaven and earth as a scroll, compared with the severing
of soul and body, of husband and wife, of mother and
child? And then," she said, as if that hope absorbed all
terror, and all other hopes, "His appearing! His glorious
appearing! It is to come one day, and suddenly, we are
told. Who can say when it may not come?"
It was very strange, the awful apprehension which
terrified so many that night out of all their dreams of,security, seemed to give Mother a calm and an assurance
I never heard her express before.
If at other times the question had been asked her,
"Lovest thou me?" she would have answered, "I hope
so. I fear it is very little; but I only trust it may be
called love."
But now that sh3 thought He might indeed be at hand,




312               THE DIARY OF
all thought of her short-comings seemed absorbed in the
thought of Him. She never thought of her love. She
loved, and looked for Him.
I remember it all so distinctly, because, after that little
prayer by my own bedside, I cannot think why, but my
terror seemed to vanish, and almost my awe. I felt
almost ashamed of myself, as if it were an irreverence,
that I could not feel the apprehension others did. But
after all, though the house trembled, it did seem to stand
quite firm. And when that great crash came, I could not
help thinking it was like a chimney falling; for afterwards I heard the stones and mortar rolling down; and
when no harm followed, I thought, "Now all that is
likely to fall has come down, and the danger is over."
I felt quite angry with myself for being so insensible,
but I could not help it. I suppose it was because I have
so little imagination.
In a few minutes I heard Father's voice rising in a
tone of quiet command above the sobs of the maids, desiring one of them to bring him a tinder-box. Then the
house-door was unbarred, and very soon Father re-entered
the room with a light, and said,"It is an earthquake, but not very violent. I have
felt far severer shocks when I was on service in the West
Indies. The crash was the chimney falling'through the
roof of the old part of the house. The danger is over
for the present, but it may recur; and we should be
prepared."




YMS. KITTY TREVYLYA2V.            313
Not long after, Aunt Henderson came back in her
sedan-chair from the Foundry.
She told us that they were all assembled in the large
preaching-house, when the walls were shaken so violently
that they all expected the building to fall on their heads.
A great cry followed, and shrieks of agonized terror.
But Mr. Charles Wesley's voice immediately rose calmly
above the tumult, saying, " Therefore will we not fear
though the earth be moved, and the hills be carried into
the midst of the sea; for the Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge."  Evelyn was there,
Aunt Henderson said, and observed to her that "it would
be worth while to have an earthquake a week, to see the
hearts of the people shaken as they were then."  "Evelyn is a strange girl, but there is more in her than I
thought," she concluded.
And I thought, "how strangely we shall all be revealed
to each other, when the Day really comes which will strip
off all disguises and take the blinding" beams " out of
all eyes!"
The danger was not over. One messenger after another continued to arrive with accounts of the tottering
walls and falling chimneys they had seen, and with wild,
incoherent rumours of the ruin and destruction of which
they had heard.
At eight o'clock Aunt Beauchamp's coach drove up to
the door, and she herself crept out of it with Evelyn, her
grey hair streaming in dishevelled locks under her hood,
* Vide Wesley's Journal.




3 14             gTHE DIARY OF
her face wan and haggard with terror and the absence
of rouge.
"My dearest sister," she exclaimed, throwing herself
hysterically into Aunt Henderson's arms, "the chimneystalks were crashing through the roofs in Great Otmond
Street, the tiles raining like hail on the pavements, the
people shrieking and crying, the streets full of flying
coaches and men on horseback. I wanted to have escaped
from the city at once, but Sir John said it was impossible
for a day or two, so I have taken refuge with you for the
night."
Poor Aunt Beauchamp was very tender and subdued.
She was ready to listen to any amount of sermons (provided she were in a safe place), from Aunt Henderson,
even when they descended to such details as hair-powder
and rouge-pots; although she decidedly objected to accompanying her to Mr. Wesley's five.o'clock early morn-,
ing service at the Foundry.
"My dear Sister Henderson," she sobbed, "you and
Kitty, and Evelyn, and every one, have become so good'
and r am a poor, foolish, worldly, old woman. I am sure
I do feel I want some kind of religion that would make
me not afraid to meet whatever might happen. If you
really think it would make me safe, I would attend
that Chapel at the Foundry, or Mr. Whitefield's Taber-.
nacle, or anything. But I cannot go back among the
tottering houses now. It is too much to expect. * If you
could only find any one to preach in the open air, we
might go in our chairs, and there would be no danger."




MRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN.            31
t My dear Sister Beauchamp," replied Aunt Henderson,
grimly, " we cannot go in our chairs to heaven."
"What do you mean, sister?" was the reply; "the
Methodists do not recommend pilgrimages, do they? I
am sure I have often wished we Protestants had something of that kind. Lady Fanny Talbot comnes back from
her retreat in Lent looking so relieved and comfortable,
feeling she has arranged everything for the year. But the
worst of the Methodists is, they seem never to have done."
Aunt Henderson's horror at this suggestion was so
great, she seemed to have lost the power of reply.
And then Mother said very quietly," Dear Sister Beauchamp, the Bible and good men say
religion is not only a shield against destruction, it is a
staff in all the troubles of life, and a cordial which we
never want to have done with. For, if religion does anything for us, I think it leads us to God, and that is our
joy and our rest."
Tears gathered in Aunt Beauchamp's eyes, not hysterical tears; and she looked at Mother with something
like one of Cousin Evelyn's wistful, earnest looks, and
said very softly,"I am afraid I do not know much of that, sister; 1
wish I did."
On the following night Aunt Beauchamp insisted on
whirling Father, and Mother, and me away to Bath in
her coach.
She would not wait an hour after Sir John was ready;




316               THE DIARY OF.
and we started at midnight. Link boys ran beside us
through the dark and silent streets. The city seemed
deserted. We niet no noisy rollicking parties. Only in
two places did we encounter a crowd. One of these
places was Moorfields, where a crowd of men, women,
and children had collected, weeping and lamenting with
no one to comfort them; and the other was Hyde Park,
where Mr. Whitefield was preaching to a multitude who
had gathered around him in their terror, as little children
round a mother's knee.
It was a strange scene, as we drove slowly on the
outskirts of the crowd. Here and there. the uncertain
flare of torches revealed a group of awe-stricken faces,
many of them wet with silent weeping; while the dense
throngs beyond were only manifest from that peculiar
audible hush which broods over a listening multitude,
broken here and there by an irrepressible sob or wail, or
by agonized cries, such as, " Lord, have mercy on me a
sinner," or " What shall I do to be saved?"
We scarcely spoke to each other all that night, and it
was very strange when the dawn crept up the sky to see
the highways thronged with coaches, and horsemen, and
pedestrians flying as from a doomed or sacked city, and
to feel of how little avail it was to fly if, after all, it was
the earth itself, the solid, immovable earth that was being
shaken.
It was very pleasant to me to see what a kind of tender reverence crept over the manner of both Father's
sisters towards Mother, before we left London.




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYA].             317
Aunt Henderson, as she packed up for us a hamper full
of jellies and cordials, on the night of our departure (inserting one large phial of her favourite compound of
snails and mashed slugs), said to me authoritatively, as
if she were completing an act of canonization," Kitty, my dear, your Mother and Aunt Jeanie are
the best women I know. They are as Fg od examples of
perfection as I ever wish to see. They may argue against
the doctrine as much as they like, but they prove it every
day of their lives. You understand, my dear, Mr. Wesley
only argues for Christian, not for Adamic or angelic perfection. He admits that even the perfect are liable to
errors of judgment, which, your poor Mother also proves,
no doubt, by her little bigotry about the Church, and
Aunt Jeanie by two or three little Presbyterian crotchets. But your Mother's patience, and her gentleness, and
her humility, Kitty, and her calmness in danger I shall
never forget. I should be very happy, Kitty," she concluded, decisively tightening the last knot of one of her
packages, "with all my privileges, to be what she is.
And how she attained such a height in that benighted
region is more than I can comprehend."' But, dear Aunt Henderson," I ventured to say, "the
grace of God can reach even to Cornwall!"
The parting between Mother and dear Aunt Jeanie
was like a leave-taking of sisters; and for keepsakes
Mother gave a beloved old volume of Mr. George Herbert's hymns, and Aunt Jeanie an old worn copy of the
letters of Mr. Samuel Rutherford.
14




31 8             TIlE DIARY OF
We stayed three or four days at Bath, during which
Aunt Beauchamp's spirits revived, and also her colour,
and her interest in cards, " For, after all," she observed
to Mother, "we have our duties to our children, and to
society, and there is no religion, at least for us Protestants, in making ourselves scarecrows."
But on the morning we went away, when we went to
her bedside to wish her good-bye, she said to Mother,"My dear Sister Trevylyan, if ever I should be ill, for
we are all mortal, and my nerves have been so terribly shaken, promise me that you will come and see me.
For I am sure you would do me more good than any
one."
And nothing would satisfy her but to send us all the
way to Plymouth in her coach, although the coachman
vehemently remonstrated, and declared he would not
answer for the consequences to the horses on those breakneck Devonshire hills, and Evelyn said such an instance
of rebellion against that potentate's decrees had never
been known in the family before.
And so we reached home again, and dear Mother
thinks (as Evelyn says no doubt the sun does), that this
is a very warm and genial world.
There was a strange tenderness in Aunt Henderson's
manner as she took leave of Mother and me; and as we
sat in the coach at Hackney waiting for the horses to
start, she came forward again and took Mother's hand
with a lingering eagerness as if she had some especial




MS. KITTY TEVYLYAl.         3319
last words to say. -Yet after all she said nothing, she
only murmured, " God bless you both."
And when I glanced back at Cousin Evelyn when we
left Bath, expecting one more of her bright looks, she
was gazing at Mother with a strange wistfulness, and
then suddenly she burst into a flood of tears and turned
away.
Can Mother, and Father, and I, have been deceiving
ourselves? She says she feels better and stronger, and
so often on the journey, she used to plan how we would
resume all our old habits, and she would rise early again.
"There is such life," she said, " in the morning air'at
home," and I should bring her the cup of new milk as of
old to the porch-closet, and " then, Kitty," she said, "we
will read the lessons for the day always together; perhaps I have not sought the especial blessing promised to
the'two or three gathered together,' as I ought. And you
shall read me sometimes one of those hymns of Dr. Watts
or of Mr. Charles Wesley. I am an old-fashioned old
woman, and I shall never be able to understand why people cannot be satisfied with the Bible and the PrayerBook, nor how they can speak of their inmost feelings in
those Bands and Classes your Aunt Henderson speaks
of, without danger. But I do like the hymns, and I am
sure we ought all to feel grateful to the Methodists for
helping the people no one else ever thought there was
any hope of helping, or of teaching anything good."
And although dear Mother has not been able to begin




320               THE DIAR' OF
all the old ways just yet, that is no more than is natural.
She is fatigued with the journey; In a few days it will
be all right.
And as to Betty, it is of no use asking what she
thinks, or minding what she says, because it is her way
always to take the dark side, especially if other people
look on the bright. And Betty's reputation as a prophetess, moreover, is bound up with the ill success of this
London expedition.
It was rather a sad greeting the night we came near
home. It was growing dusk, and everything was very
still, when a low chaunt broke on us from the opposite
hill. Solemnly the measured music rose and fell, like
the rise and fall of waves on a calm day, until, as we
drew nearer, the hill-side sent the sound back to us so
clearly we could distinguish it to be the deep voices of
men singing as they moved along the moorland. From
the slow, steady movement we knew too well what the
sad procession must be. We did not say any thingto each
other. But when we were sitting at supper in the hall,
Mother asked Betty which of the neighbours was dead.
" It was old Widow Treffry," said Betty, "and Toby
has joined the Methodists lately, and the members of
his class carried her to the church-yard to-day, singing
one of Parson Wesley's hymns as they went."
"It was very solemn and sweet," said Mother. " It
made me think of the stories my father used to tell me,
when I was a child, of the ancient Church, and the
funerals of the martyrs."




IMRS. KITTY TREVYLYALE             321
"Poor old Widow Treffry was no martyr, and not
much of a saint," said. Betty candidly, " though they do
say, poor sou., she changed latterly. Nothing would
save her. It was spotted fever. Poor Toby takes on
dreadful. He did all that could be done for her, and
spared no expense, and they gave her sack, cold milk,
apples, and preserved plums, as much as she could
swallow.*  But it was all of no use, as of course nothing
is, when the Almighty's time is come for any of us."
" I wish we had returned a little sooner," said Mother.
" I have a wonderful prescription for fever."
"So had the doctor from Falmouth," said Betty grimly.
Trusty's welcome was far more manifest. Having
exhausted all his ordinary modes of expressing satisfaction with his tail, and gone through all his limited
vocabulary, from a rapturous bark to a certain whine,
he let off the remainder of his exuberant spirits in an
eccentric excursion into the poultry-yard, causing great
quackings and cacklings and flutterings there, by his
rough extempore jokes; and finally spent the evening
in a sober and intelligent way, snuffing about each of
us, until he evidently felt satisfied that he had smelt out
the whole history of our absence.
The contrast between Betty's deeds and words was
even more apparent than usual on our return home.
Every little detail of Father's and Mother's comfort
and even of my fancies, was remembered, on the suppertable, in our chambers, everywhere; the chairs set in
See Wesley's Journal




322              TIIE DIA PY OF
the very corner we liked, the preserves and biscuits we
preferred, a little fresh packet of Virginian tobacco for
Father, and in Mother's chamber her favourite books
placed on a little table by her bedside, every corner of
every room sweet and fresh with laborious sweeping and
rubbing. Welcome glistened from every white tablecloth and sheet, and gleamed from every bit of metal or
polished wood in the house.
It was evident indeed that for weeks Betty had been
revelling in a paradise of washing-tubs, scrubbingbrushes, wax and oil, and soap, uninterrupted by any of
the hindrances interposed by the disturbing processes
of ordinary life. But in words and manner she received
us like a band of delinquents who, after vainly flying
from home and duty, had at length perceived their folly,
and were now returning in penitence and humiliation.
I knew there was much bottling up in Betty's mind
to be uncorked on the first convenient occasion; and tonight the occasion arrived, as I was going to bed, when
I took her out of my chest a beautiful copy of Mr.
Wesley's collection of hymns bound in red morocco, as a
present from Cousin Evelyn, with her affectionate remembrances.
"Good reason indeed, Mrs. Kitty, we have to remember Mrs. Evelyn," she said, "and are likely to have.
However it's a mercy Missis has come back at all."
"The doctors all say she is better, and she feels so,
Betty," I said.
"Poor, dear Missis," said Betty, "yes, sure, she's




MRUS. KITTY TRE VYLYA[.            323
ready enough to feel what the doctors or any one else
like to impose on her. However, after all the signs and
tokens I have had, it's a mercy we're all together again,
and I'll say no more."
" What signs and tokens?" I asked.
"I am not superstitious, Mrs. Kitty, my dear," said
Betty. "Some folks be always looking out for wonders,
and of course such folks see plenty; but I'm not one of
them. I never see'd a ghost in my life, man, woman,
or beast, though my mother did; and of course I've
heard.of many.' But the house has been mortal wisht,
I can't deny, these last days. The dog don't howl all
night in that way for nothing. He was glad enough to
see you all come back, poor fool; and no doubt he had
his reasons. They do say beasts see more than we see
at times. Nor do the birds come pecking at the window
after dark without being sent; nor will the old white
owl hoot himself hoarse only to please himself; nor the
dishes tumble down from the dressers, where I set them
as firm as a rock, nor the bells ring, without ever a hand
going near them."
" There are mice, Betty," I suggested.
"There be mice, Mrs. Kitty," said Betty, solemnly;
"but it's my belief no mouse or rat pulled Missis' bell
that way three times at midnight, leastways no mortal
mice or rats; for what beasts there may be in the other
world is not for me to say."
A strange chill came over my heart at Betty's words,
and still more at her tones; and.at length I said,



324               THE DIARY OF
"But, Betty, whatever strange things or: creatures
there may be about us., the other world is God's world
as much as this, and nothing can go beyond His will.
There is no dark, terrible corner of the world left out of
His presence, Betty; and where He is there is light."
"That's been my only comfort, my dear," said Betty.
"No doubt there's no darkness with the Almighty; but
there be a good deal that's not quite light and plain to
me. Do you think, Mrs. Kitty," she concluded in an
awe-stricken whisper, ".that I'd have bided here alone
all this time, with all these noises going on,. and no
one but Roger to speak to, and he with not as much
sense as the dog, if I hadn't had the Almighty to look
to, and if He hadn't taught me to pray? I'm not
timoursome nor fancical, but the sweat has stood on my
face like dew many a time; and I be cruel glad to see
you all home again I" she concluded. And these were
Betty's first words of welcome; and she left me to go to
bed in her own room inside mine, but in a minute she
came out again and said," Don't you take on about anything I said, my dear.
You know it may have been only poor Widow Treffry
after all; and anyway we must trust the Lord, Mrs.
Kitty, my dear.; we must trust the Lord."
But somehow poor Betty's attempts at consolation have
made my heart fail more than all her signs and tokens.
I have always prayed so much that I might not blind
my eyes, but look in the face whatever God sends, and
try to bear it as it is. It always seems to me that we




MRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN.            325
should meet troubles as Mr. Wesley says he likes tc
meet mobs:" I always like to look a mob in the face,"
said he. Yet we ought not to go out of our way to meet
the mob. That would not be true courage. It would
be a nervous apprehension and fear, able to bear anything better than the suspense of waiting to see what is
to come. It seems to me to require far less courage to
rush at the enemy than to wait for him; and yet this
waiting courage, this patience, is just what we, at least
we women, seem most to need in this life.
Not a year since, as regarded those dearest to me, I
could walk by sight rather than by faith; Mother, and
Father, and Jack, and Hugh, all here together. And
now Jack is in the army in Flanders, and Hugh on the
Atlantic Ocean. At any hour I know not what may
be happening to them. Mother, indeed, our precious
Mother, I can be with every moment; I can watch her
every look, I can anticipate her every want; and yet
sometimes it seems as if Mother were even less within
my grasp, less to be kept by any clinging touch of mine,
than either Jack or Hugh I
I watch her night and day, and yet I cannot tell
whether my fears delude me, or my hopes.
She has not, indeed, gained much since last year, but
to-day she looks a little brighter than yesterday, and tomorrow she may be a little stronger than to-day; and
so by degrees all will be well.
Yet it is just when I have reasoned myself into most
hope that the old fears come back most powerfully.




326               THE DIARY OF
And then, as now, I have but one resource-but one.
Thinking may drive away many cares and lighten
many sorrows; but for suspense, for uncertainty, for
anxieties whose issues we cannot know, it seems to me
there is no remedy at all but prayer.
But, oh, how could we bear the overwhelming thought,
"Thou knowest,"-the thought that there is a certainty
somewhere,-unless we had also the conviction warm at
our hearts, "Thou lovest,"-the certainty that the deepest certainty of all is the love of Him who orders all?
Yesterday afternoon, when Mother and I returned
from a little walk to the entrance of our cave, where
she had rested a little while on a rock, to drink in the
air from the sea, which was as soft as milk, and made
the heart glad, like wine when one is weary, we found
the parlour occupied by our new vicar, Cousin Evelyn's
great-uncle. Betty was talking to him at the door; and
when he had greeted us, the vicar observed in rather a
nervous way ta.mother (Evelyn had not told us how shy
and nervous he was),"Your servant, madam, seems a woman of shrewd
sense and much observation; and I grieve to say she
confirms the worst reports I have heard of the parish
as to wrecking and other lawless proceedings."
"Indeed, sir," said Mother, smiling, " we have lived
here very peacefully for many years; and Betty does not
always see the world on its brightest side."
"Madam, you relieve me considerably," he replied;
"the accounts that good person gave were really appall



MRS. KITTY TREVYL YAi.            327
ing-I may say, without exaggeration, in many respects
really appalling. A clergyman, madam," he resumed,
after taking a pinch of snuff from his gold snuff-box,
"has many things to discover on his first arrival in a
new locality, especially, I may say, I trust without
offence, in a locality which has, at all events, not as yet
attained the-point of civilization on which we stand at
Oxford,-that is," he contifued, qualifying his assertions
in a nervous way, as if he were correcting something
written, "not in* all particulars-not precisely in all
particulars."
As the assertion was, at least in that modified form,
rather undeniable, Mother could only say,"You must, indeed, sir, find the contrast great."
"Madam," he replied, "I do; yes, I think I must
admit I do." And then, fortifying himself with another
pinch of snuff, he rushed at once (as -I have noticed
nervous people frequently do) at the point he had to
reach.
"Madam," he resumed, "I have been informed that
there is a conventicle held on Sunday evenings in this
house."
Mother coloured, and rose; but it evidently cost the
vicar too much.to make the assertion not to pursue it;
he could not rely on his own courage for a second charge,
and accordingly pressed it. "Yes, madam, a conventicle, in which is also perpetrated. the further enormity
of female preaching. I was also informed that in this
conventicle the most pointed allusions are made to the




328              THE DIABY OF
clergy; that it is spoken of as a great marvel that any
good gift or grace should be given to the bishops or
curates: and that last Sunday evening it was actually
stated, in.the most offensive manner, that it would be a
good thing indeed if the priests showed forth God's glory,
either by their preaching or by their living. Madam,"
concluded the vicar, having, I suppose, exhausted his
ammunition, and relapsing iAto his usual nervous and
courteous manner-" madam, a clergyman, a stranger,
does not know what to believe. I would have preferred
seeing Captain Trevylyan; but since your servant told
me he was out, I did not like to wait."
"Sir," said Mother, who by this time had resumed
her seat and her composure, " you have acted with true
courtesy and frankness. On the winter Sunday evenings we have been in the habit of collecting our two servants, with a few of our ailing and aged neighbours to
read the Church service to them and some passages from
the Homilies."
"The Church service and the Homilies? A very primitive and praiseworthy custom, madam!" said the vicar,
evidently greatly relieved, " and only a few aged people,
within the legal number, no doubt; not more than thirtynine?"
"I never counted, sir," said Mother.
"No doubt, my dear madam, no doubt; but you would
in future be particular on that score. The times are perilous, madam, and these Methodists seem to have penetrated even here. No doubt my informant was mistaken."




RS. KITTY TEVYL YAN.             329
" Perhaps, Mother," I ventured to suggest,:" the vicar's
informant was a Dissenter. You always read the prayer,'0 God, who alone workest great marvels, send down
on all bishops and curates,'-and last Sunday Father read
the Litany,-and you remember' both by their preaching
and living.'"
"Exactly," said the vicar, seizing at the escape, " the
young lady's suggestion slows great acuteness. And
my informant may himself be a dangerous person, a nonconformist, perhaps even himself a Methodist."
At this point Father entered; and over a bottle of
claret, the unequalled greatness of Marlborough and the
degeneracy of the times, the misunderstanding was
finally adjusted, the only combustible element again
introduced being Cousin Evelyn, on the mention of
whose name and our relationship the vicar observed that
she was a young person of much ability, but with a tendency to dangerous opinions, a decided tendency to very
dangerous opinions.
At last he left with many profound bows, saying,"Madam, such society and such hospitality as I have
found under your roof have gone far to remove the unfavourable impressions previously produced by that good
person, your housekeeper's statements. Her accounts
of the moral state of the district were alarming, I may
say appalling, to the highest degree."
"It is very strange, however," said Mother, when the
vicar had left, and she related the interview to Father,
"that any one should c'nfouad me with the Methodists;




330              THE DIARY OF
and suspect me of holding conventicles. It is very
strange," repeated Mother, in a tone of no little annoyance.
"Very strange, my dear," said Father with a mischievous twinkle in his eye; "but I have always observed it
is the cautious people who get into the worst scrapes."
"But, Betty," I said this morning," what did you tell
the vicar, to frighten him so about the parish?"
"Well, Mrs. Kitty," said Betty, "I told him pretty
nigh everything I could think of: about the wreckers
tying lanterns to the horses' tales to entice ships on the
rocks, and murdering the crews, and firing on the King's
men, and about the poaching, and the fights among the
miners, and all the worst things that have happened
these last thirty years. I was set on it he should know.
What right had he or any stranger to come here a prying or spying into our country, and specially into our
own town-place, and to turn away Master Hugh, who
has got the hearts of every man, woman, and child in
the parish? I only wish I could terrify the old gentleman out of the country."
Finding Betty in an approachable mood, I took the
opportunity of asking what her opinion was on Mr.
Wesley's doctrine of " perfection."
"Well, Mrs. Kitty," she said, " I've got my thoughts
on that matter," and she began to elaborate the ornaments on the pie-crust in a way that betokened a long
discourse. "In the first place, my dear, it's my belief




/IRS. KITTY TRE VYL YAN.           33
that when -a man's not a fool in general, when you do
understand him, it's a wise thing to think he's not a
fool when you don't understand him, but to try to make
out what he does mean. That's my way; some folks, Mrs.
Kitty, go just the other way, however that's no concern
of mine. Now, my dear, when I heard the folks say
that Parson Wesley said there are some poor mortals on
earth who've got beyond sinning, I said to myself, Parson
Wesley's no fool, that's plain if nothing else is, and he
must have some meaning. And so I said to some of the
folks,'Did he say you were perfect and had got beyond
sinning?' And when they said'No,' I said'Well, leastways, he's right enough there.' And that quieted them
for a bit. So I was left to think it out for myself.
"And, Mrs. Kitty, it's my belief Parson Wesley means
this. He has seen, maybe, some folks sit down moaning
and groaning over their sins as if their sins were a kind
of rheumatism in their bones and they had nothing to do
with but to bear it. For I've seen such folks, Mrs.
Kitty, I can't deny, folks calling themselves Christians,
who'd speak of their tempers or their laziness, or their
flesh as they call it, as if their flesh were not themselves,
but a kind of ill-natured beast they'd got to keep, that
would balrk and snap at times, and no fault of theirs.
Some folks, if you speak to them of their faults, will
shake their heads and say,'Yes, we're poor sinners and
the flesh is weak, but when we get to heaven, it'll be all
right. We can't expect, you kn~,w, to be perfect here.'
And if Parson Wesley ever came across such I can fancy




332              THE DIARY OF
his being aggravated terrible, for they be aggravating,
and have many a time angered me. And I can fancy
his going up to them in his brisk way and saying,'You
poor foolish souls, you'll never get to heaven at all in
that way, and if you don't get sin out of your hearts now
you'll find it'll be death by-and-by. Get up and fight
with your sins like men. The Almighty never meant
you to go on sinning and groaning, and groaning and
sinning. He says you are to be holy, you're to be perfect, and what the Almighty says He means. Get up
and try, and you'll find He'll help you. And if they do
try, the Almighty does help them; and instead of keeping
on sinning and moaning, they'll be singing and doing
right. They'll be loving the Lord and loving each other.
And," continued Betty, "that's what I think Parson
Wesley means by'perfection.'"
"Some folks," she resumed after a pause, "seem to
think going to heaven is a kind of change of air, that'll
make their souls well all in a moment, just as other folks
think going to London'11 make their bodies well all in a,moment. But I don't see that changes of place make the
body any better, and I don't see why it should the soul.
Parson Wesley says eternity and eternal life, and forgiveness of sins, and holiness, and heaven itself, must
begin in the soul, here and now, or they'll never begin
there and then.  "And," she concluded, "Mrs. Kitty,
my dear, it's my belief that's what Parson Wesley means
by'perfection;' and if he means anything else, or anything wrong, it's no concern of mine, my lear, for Par



MRS. KITTY TRE TYLYAN.           333
son Wesley s not the Bible, and it isn't at his judgmentseat we've got to stand."
And so saying, Betty laid her pie-crust on the dish,
put the dish in the oven, and finished the interview.
She seems to have arrived at much the same conclusion as Aunt Jeanie.
Mother said this morning she thought all danger -of
infection from the spotted fever from which poor Widow
Treffry died must be over, and that we might go and see
how poor Toby was getting on.
"I cannot bear the idea of his being alone in that
dreary place," she said, "with all those melancholy
thoughts he had when Hugh and you went to see him;
and he must want many little comforts."
So Mother and I went off together, she on the old grey
pony, a basket full of "little comforts" hanging from the
pommel of the saddle. We found the cottage-door open,
but no one within. The widow's donkey, now in a good
old age, was standing with closed eyes and an expression of the most stupid repose near the door. As I went
a few steps from the cottage towards the sea, I heard
the sound of low singing broken by occasional hammering, and mingling with the plash of the ebbing waves
which were creeping lazily up the sands in the calm of
the summer noon.
In a few minutes we found Toby mending his boat on
the shingle, the grey pony was turned loose to graze on
the short sweet turf near the cottage, the contents of




334              THE DIA Y OF
the basket were disposed of within, and Mother and I
seated ourselves on a rock beside Toby.
There was a look of order about the cottage and about
Toby's dress, rather new to both, and Mother commended it.
" Well, Missis," said Toby, after a shy pause, " there is
a difference.  There's something more like order and
comfort inside, I trust, than there was, thank the Lord."
"You think Mr. Wesley and the Methodists helped
you, Toby," said Mother.
"Bless your heart, Missis, I know they did. But it
was not them only," he resumed with some hesitation,
pulling his hair and making a shy nod at me, "it was
partly Mrs. Kitty and Master Hugh. The first thing
I believe that did me any good was seeing Mrs. Kitty
in a rage all along of the old donkey." And then he
went on to tell us how on that morning many years
ago when I met him on the cliff, beating his donkey (he
said), and had spoken so sharply to him about it, and then
looked so kind and given him a drink of new milk, he
had ridden on laughing in himself at the "tantrums"
of young ladies, and wondering equally why I should
care about the beast being beaten or about his being
hungry.
But he said it was curious how my words and looks
stuck to him. It seemed somehow to waken him to the
thought that there was such a thing as right and wrong,
and that the right thing was kindness and goodness;
and he said that from that time he had never lifted his




MRS. KITTY TREVYYL AN.           335
hand against the donkey without somehow feeling a soft
kind hand pulling him back; and in time (it was very
odd), but he found the donkey went as well for good
words as for bad.
Then Master Hugh used to go out with him in the
boat, and in return for what Toby taught him of fishing
and boating, offered to teach Toby to read. And Toby
used to say in a surly way that " he didn't mind trying;"
not that he or his mother saw much good in it, but he
didn't like to vex Master Hugh. And Master Hugh
made him learn many good words out of the Bible, and
although he heeded the words little then, they came
back afterwards, and often were just the'end of the
rope which kept his soul above water.   But the
great lesson that got into his heart from Hugh, Toby
thought, was that goodness and mercy are not the mere
softness and ornament of women, but the strength of
men.
But all this time, his own life was rough and dark
enough; their cottage had always been a refuge and
plotting-place for wreckers and wild characters of
various kinds. Often when Toby as a boy lay in bed
in the inner chamber on stormy nights, he has heard
eager voices discussing the harvest likely to be reaped
from  the tempest, the chances of wrecks on various
points of the coast, and the hope of prizes, as eagerly as
if the poor tossing ship had been freighted with no
human lives, and worked by no trembling hlman hands,




336              THE DIARY OF
but charged witt. a mere inanimate cargo of merchlandise for their -especial benefit. Toby said some of their
words haunted him to this day. "She's making straight
for the rocks." " Couldn't you help her, Granny, by a
little friendly light in the window?" "She's on them 1"
" That's a bed she's not likely to rise from 1" " She has
gone down like a shot 1" or "She makes a good fight 1"
" Fire your guns, there's no hand to help, the wind'll
beat you " " Never mind; the waves'1 do the rest!"
"There'll be a godsend for some lucky folks in the
morning!"
And then in the early dusk he has heard mysterious
rollings of casks into the outhouse by his bed.
In time he grew up to take his share in the watching,
the work, and the spoils, to look on the storms as his
natural harvest-field, and to think with scarcely more
tenderness of a wreck than of a haul of mackerel.
The crews struggled, he reasoned with himself, and
so did the fish. Of course they neither of them liked
it; but ships he supposed were made most of them to
be wrecked one day on some coast or other, just as fish
were made to be caught in some net or other; and if
some folks must be better for it, why not they I There
was indeed a dull sense of the work not being quite as
harmless as fishing, which prevented his ever speaking
of it to Hugh. He knew there was something " up to
London," which objected to such proceedings, and occasionally came down fiercely, in a blundering way, on
some unlucky poor soul or other, although very corn



MRS. KITTY TR.EVYLYAN             337
monly not on the worst man, or when he was doing the
worst work.
And he knew there was also something somewhere
up in heaven which shared these objections, and also in
a blind blundering way (like a great water-wheel if you
get entangled in it) came down every now and then on
some chance offender and hurt or crushed him.
And he had also a dim notion that there was some
mysterious connection between this great destructive and
avenging something and the Ten Commandments.
There were moments, also, when the dull sense of all
not being right with him, which made him afraid in
passing lonely burial-grounds, or in the dark in strange
places, or at any strange noises in familiar places, would
be quickened into a sharp pain, when on the bodies of
the drowned was found some linen marked by careful
hands, or some little fond relic or locket containing a
child's or a woman's hair, showing that the dead belonged
to some who had loved them at home, a pain which became intolerable after the death of that poor drowned
sailor-lad, whose face he never could forget.
"And then," he said, "came Parson Wesley, preaching
on the downs not far away," and made him feel that the
something which was against him in heaven was no blind
machine, but the living God, whose eyes are in every
place beholding the evil and the good, and searching to
the bottom of every heart and every work; that the
thing God is against is sin; that sin is in great part
doing wrong to others, or not doing them the good we




338              TEIE DIARY OF
could; that there is nothing in the least uncertain in His
ways, but the most absolute certainty that sooner or
later, but in exact proportion to the sin, will come the
punishment; that the most terrible things that can happen to wicked men on earth are nothing but the prick of
a momentary gnat-bite to the gnawing of the worm that
dieth not; but as the tingling of a hand placed for an
instant too near the fire, to being plunged' in the heart
of the flames which never will be quenched; "the fire"
for all sinners, "their worm" for each; and yet that the
most terrible agonies of hell are the agonies that begin
now; the gnawing of hopeless remorse at the conscience,
the sense of the presence of God, from whom we cannot
escape, and whom we dare not approach, who holds us
full in His searching gaze, and through His eyes, which
we cannot avoid, looks down our eyes, which we cannot
veil, into the black spots in our hearts, which He knows,
and we know, which we cannot cover or wash out, and
which He abhors.   "And that was how I felt, Mrs.
Kitty," said Toby, " when you came to see Mother, and
heard me moaning in the chamber inside."
" But that is changed now," Mother said.
" Yes, Missis," said Toby solemnly," my sin is the same.
I think I hate it more, it's seldom out of my sight. King
David. says,'My sin is ever before me,' and I find him
pretty right. And the eyes of the living Lord are on me
searching me through and through, it seems to me deeper
and deeper'most every day; and I can't avoid them any
more than I could, but thank the Lord, I don't want to.




MfRS. KITTY TREEVYLYAN.           339
There's the difference,-I don't want to. I wouldn't be
out of the sight of His eyes for the world."
"And what helped you thus at last?" said Mother.
"It was mostly the hymns," said Toby; "first the
Bible and then mostly the hymns, for they are the Bible
for the most part, only set to music, like, so that it
rings in your heart like a tune. It was the hymns, and
what they said at the class-meetings. Before I went to
class, and heard what they had to say there, I thought
I was all alone, like a castaway on a sandy shore under
a great sheer wall of cliffs-a. narrow strip of sand
which no mortal man had ever trod before, and which
the tide was fast sweeping over bit by bit. To spell
out the hymns in the book by myself was like finding
footprints on the sands, and that was something.  It
made me feel my trouble was no madness, as poor Mother
called it; no mad dream, but waking up from the maddest dream that could be. It made me see that others
had felt as I felt, and struggled as I was struggling, and
got through. But when I went to the class and heard had
them sing the hymns, it was like hearing voices on the
top of the cliffs cheering me up, and pointing out the
way. Our class-leader is no great speaker, but he's got
a wonderful feeling heart, and a fine voice for the hymns,
and its they that has finished Parson Wesley's work, and
healed the wound he made:
"'Depths of mercy, can there be
Mercy still reserved for me?'
That was the first which settled down in my heart. I




340                 THE DIARY OF
couldn't listen any further, and I couldn't get that out of
my head for days, until another took its place:"' Jesu! let thy pitying eye,
Call back a wandering sheep;
False to thee, like Peter, I
Would fain like Peter weep.
Let me be by grace restored,
On me be all long-suffering shown;
Turn and look upon me, Lord,
And breaks my heart of stone.
"'For thine own compassion's sake,
The gracious wonder show;
Cast my sins behind thy back,
And wash me white as snow.
If thy bowels now are stirred,
If now I would myself bemoan,
Turn and look upon me, Lord,
And break my heart of stone.
" Look as when thy languid eye
Was closed that we might live;
"Father" (at the point to die
My Saviour gasped), "Forgive I"
Surely with that dying word,
He turns, and looks, and cries, "'Tis done 1"
Oh, my bleeding, loving Lord,
Thou break'st my heart of stone!'
"That hymn," Toby said, "seemed to put a new
picture" in his heart. Instead of the pale face of the
poor lad lying lifeless on the sands, which had lately
haunted him night and day, another countenance rose
before him, pale and all but lifeless, but with the hollow eyes, large with pain, fixed in the tenderest pity on
him.   He understood that " God was in Christ recon



VRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             341
ciling the world unto himself.."  He felt that it was the
face of the Judge that looked so tenderly on him from the
cross; that suffering beyond any he had ever dreaded
had been borne for him by the Lord himself, made sin
for him. And he felt he was forgiven.
Then all day his heart seemed bursting with the joy
of reconciliation, and he was singing,"Thee will I love, lny joy; my crown,
Thee will I love, my Lord, my God,
Thee will I love, beneath thy frown
Or smile, thy sceptre or thy rod:
What though my flesh and heart decay,
Thee shall I love in endless day."
Everywhere that dying face of his Saviour seemed beaming on him in the fullness of pity and love, and those
words, "'Tis done I   Father, forgive!" filled all the
world with music. He could see or hear nothing else.
" And now?" said Mother.
"Now, Missis," said Toby, "I see all things once
more, as they are; but it seems as if everything were
changed inwardly, though the outside is the same.
The curse is taken out of everything. Even that poor
dead lad's face, I see it now, and I am not afeared. For
it seems to say,'Not to me, Toby, it's too late, I want
nothing; not to me, but to all the rest, for my sake.
And the two faces seem to get mixed up in my mind,
Missis, the poor drowned lad's and His; and still the
words the dumb lips speak are the same,' N)t to Me,
all is well with Me; but to all the rest, for My sake.'
15




342                 THE DIARY.
And that,"'concluded Toby, "is what I live in hopes
it'll be given me to do, before Idie."
"How, Toby?" said Mother.
" Why, Missis," he said, " I watch for the wrecks more
than ever I did in old times. I watch for the crews as I
never watched for the cargoes. And one-of these days
it's my belief the Lord'll give me to save some of them,
and to see some poor lifeless souls wake up to life again
up there by mother's fire.  And then I shall feel those
two faces smiling on me up in heaven, the poor drowned
lad's, Missis, and the blessed Lord's himself. And that'11
be reward enough for an angel, let alone that an angel
could never know the shame, and the sin, and the bitter
reproaches in my heart that makes it like heaven to me
to dare to look up in His face at all."
" And meantime?" said Mother.
" Meantime, Missis," said Toby, " Parson Wesley says
that the end of all the commandments of God is love,
and since I once saw that,-that what pleases the, Lord
is for us to be good and kind to each other, it's wonderful how many chances I've got of pleasing Him. There's
hardly a day without them."
And as she rode home on the grey pony Mother said,
" Kitty, our Saviour said,'The last shall be first,' and
I think I never understood so well what He meant as
to-day. As I left that poor fellow's cottage, with the
open Bible on the window ledge, it seemed to me as
sacred as a church."




x.
HE post-mistress at Falmouth will begin to
think me quite an important personage. This
morning two letters arrived for me-one from
London from Jack, and another from New York from
Hugh.
Hugh's letter contains a kind of brief narrative of his
travels, which I read to Father and Mother.
It also contains a little especial piece for me, which I
do not read to any one.
I am quite surprised to find what large towns and
what a number of people there are in the American
colonies.
I always thought America was a kind of place of exile
where every one always looked unsettled, as if they
were only staying there for a short time, and where
things were always at the beginning. I never thought
of people being really at home there. Of course it was
a foolish thought. Hugh says some of the towns are a
hundred years old, and some of the houses look quite
venerable.
Hugh went through a great deal of Ireland on foot on
(343)




344               THE DIARY OF
his way, and took ship at Cork. During his wanderings
he lodged in the little, dirty, smoky Irish cabins, or
wherever he could find shelter, and preached in all kinds
of wild places, or in crowded streets, wherever he could
find people ready to listen.
"Sometimes," he writes, " the poor peasants at first
took me for a new kind of mendicant friar, and seemed
rather disappointed when at the end of my sermon I did
not proceed to beg. Their warm Irish hearts are easily
touched-tears and blessings pour forth readily (as also
on other occasions curses). The spontaneous responses
are strange enough at times. As I read the'prodigal
son,' a voice cried out,'By all the saints that's me;' or,
on some home-thrust, in an angry tone,'What traitor
then told you that of Pat Blake?' perhaps accompanied
with a handful of mud;-or oftener,'Holy Mary, mother
of God, pray for us miserable sinners;' or,' Sweet Jesus,
have mercy on us I' or,'By the mass, that's true.' I try
to speak of the love of God to men, and the sacrifice of
the Cross, and of the joy of God in welcoming the returning sinner, and of the joy of the forgiven child;
and those truths which we hold in common with the
Church of Rome, although, unhappily, too much as the
green meadow where Daisy feeds has a common soil with
the bare patch beyond it, which the tinners have covered
with destructive rubbish. It is more and more amazing
to me, the more I see of the world, to find to what an
extent, and by what an infinite variety of means, the
enemy has contrived to bury out of sight the great life



MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             345
giving truth that God is love and loves the world-that
He has redeemed us at infinite cost-that His one command to us as to return to Him and be welcomed and
blessed, and find the joy we were made for in serving
Him.
" Sometimes, however, my reception is very different.
The reputation of the new heresy of Methodism' has
gone before me.'Swaddlers' is the term of reproach
here taken up by the ignorant mob, from a sermon
preached by Job Cennick on the text,' She took the
babe and wrapped it in swaddling clothes, and laid it in
a manger.' In such cases the whole population rise together, especially the women, and vociferate and curse
as I think only Irish voices can, until they are tired, and
give me a hearing from sheer exhaustion, or until they
excite themselves to a fury ready for any violence, and
pelt me out of the place.
" In Cork the excited mob attacked the'Swaddlers'
in the streets with clubs and swords, wounded many
dangerously, and began to pull down one of their houses.
In spite or in consequence of this persecution, nowhere,
Mr. Wesley says, have there been more living and dying
witnesses of the power of religion than at Cork. Already
Methodism has had more than one martyr in Ireland.
Persecution draws the persecuted together with a wonderful strength of affection. It is not the mobs we have to
dread as the worst hindrance to religion in Ireland; it
is the excitable, variable spirit of the people themselves,
so easily touched and so easily turned aside. And Mr.




346               THE DIAYR OF
Wesley says the lifeless Protestants, who hate Christianity more than they do Popery or Paganism, are the
worst enemies of the gospel in Ireland. But the excitement of speaking to an Irish audience is great. The
quick comprehension of any allusion, the quick response
in the expressive faces to every change in your own emotions, are very exhilarating, after the slower and heavier
masses of our Saxon countrymen. Yet to see an English
multitude once really stirred to the heart, is a sight
which moves me more deeply than anything. It is like
the heaving of the great sea on our own coasts. Those
great massive waves do not easily subside, and rocks
crumble before their steady power like sand-banks.
"Charles Wesley's hymns have immense power in
Ireland. There is a strange story of a bitter persecutor
at Wexford hiding himself in a sack in a barn where the
persecuted Methodists assembled, with the doors shut
for fear of the people. He intended to open the door to
the mob outside. But in his hiding-place the singing
laid such hold on his heart, that he resolved to hear it
through before he disturbed the meeting. After the
singing, the prayer laid hold on his conscience, and he
lay trembling and moaning in the sack, to the great
alarm of the congregation, who thought it was the Devil.
At length some one took courage to open the sack, and
there lay the persecutor, a weeping penitent. His heart
had really been reached, and his conversion proved permanent.
"Thus again and again the hymns lull the jealous




iVRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.1           347
sentinels of Prejudice to sleep, and leave the fortress of
Conscience open to the assaults of the Truth.
"I have only once myself encountered a really furious
mob. I had been speaking to an attentive crowd in an
open space in the middle of a town. Some had been
moved to tears, and the general attention had been
profound. While I spoke, I had observed the keen eyes
of one old woman intently fixed on me with an ominous,
searching gaze. When I finished with prayer and a
hymn, her eyes suddenly. flashed into rage, and she exclaimed in a shrill, piercing voice,'Where's your Hail
lMary.'
"The change in the audience was as if a spell of
witchcraft had been cast on them. Loud cries and deep
curses suddenly poured forth against the heretic, the
deceiver: stones and sticks began to fly from all sides
around me.
"It is a terrible experience to find yourself thus suddenly face to face with an angry mob, every member of
which is a human being with a heart like your own,
capable of pity and kindness, and physicallyno stronger
than yourself; but which altogether is a fierce, inhuman
monster, capable of tearing you in pieces, with no more
difficulty and no more pity than a hungry lion. It is a
trial to courage to feel yourself. with all your strength
of manhood, helpless as an infant in the grasp of hundreds of men, no one of whom, perhaps, could make you
yield an inch. But it is a far sorer trial to faith and




348              THE DIARY OF
love to find hundreds of your fellow-men, and even of
women, no one of whom, perhaps, alone would refuse you
help and shelter, transformed into a dreadful, merciless
monster, with the brain of a man, the heart of a wild
beast, and the strength of the sea in a storm.
"To me the danger seemed lost in the sorrow. It
was like having a glimpse into hell, thus to have unveiled
before me the terrible capacities for evil in the heart of
man, which make it possible for men to be transformed
into a mob.
" The danger was soon over, for (I know not how) a
division arose among my assailants; they began fighting
among themselves, and I escaped with a graze or two oq
my forehead.
"But, Kitty, it was not until I had spent more than
one night in prayer, it was not until I recollected another
mob, which accomplished its purpose, until once more
above such a sea of cruel, mocking, inhuman, human
faces, I had seen by faith, One sublime, suffering, human
Face uplifted, divine in unruffled love and pity; until
once more by faith I had heard those tones faltering
with pain, but unfaltering in compassionate love,'Father,
forgive them; for they know not what they do.' It was
not till then that I could take heart, and hope to go
forth once more with the message of pardon and grace.
But then, I think I never gave the message, I am sure 1
never felt it with half the power before.
"And then I recollected yet another mob which also
accomplished its purpose mercilessly pelting its victim




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             349
with stones until he'fell asleep,' and what one of that
merciless mob became. Such possibilities of good are
there even in hearts out of which fanaticism may seem
to have scorched all humanity.
" Here in America I have found no mobs, but, instead,
throngs of eager listeners; men, women, and children,
riding scores of miles through forest and wilderness, and
encamping in the open country for nights to hear the
preacher.
"The honoured name here is not so much Wesley's
as Whitefield's, and the love for him is immeasurable.
I think the accents of this apostle from our country have
to the colonists the double charm of novelty and of
home. There is still much affectionate reverence here
for the'old country,' although I think, with many, partaking more than we should think flattering of the
reverence for old age. Perhaps they have as little idea
here in the colonies of the freshness and youth left in
the heart of the old country, as we have in England of
the manhood and strength which the new country has
attained.
"The field labour in the warm Southern States is
mostly carried on by black slaves imported from Africa.
Some of the simplest and most fervent converts are
among these negroes. Susceptible and impressible even
more than the Irish, easily moved to tears and laughter,
their circumstances of bondage (and in many cases), of
exile, make the tidings of free grace, of a Saviour loving




350               THE DIARY OF
black and white alike, and paying the ransom for all,
peculiarly welcome.
"The first missions to the slaves were those of the
Moravians in the West Indies. And there have been
persecutions there for Christ's sake, in some respects
like those of early times, bonds and imprisonments,'cruel mockings and scourginrs.' inflicted, not by mobs,
but by masters.
"These diabolical possibilities of cruelty which unlimited power (whether in masters or mobs, kings or
priests) develops in the hearts of men, are things I dare
not dwell on, except on my knees.
"But God is stronger than Satan; and love is mightier
and more enduring than malice.
"The Cross, not the Sanhedrim, has triumphed."
*        *         -*       *        *
" P. S.-I have seen Tom Henderson.
"He has been successful in his schemes, and is on his
way in time to be a rich man. He was full of magnificent projects of- returning to his father's house like a
prince, and entreating forgiveness with a fortune in his
hands, that should make it plain he sought forgiveness
for its own sale and not for the sake of any advantages
it might bring.  I have endeavoured to persuade him
that his duty is to write if not to go home at once, not
as a prince, but as a repentant runaway —to throw himself on his father's forgiveness, bear his reproaches, and
help him in any way he can.
"He /)ught against this very much at first, but I




MRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN.             3 51
told him, Kitty, what you told me you had seen of his
mother's grief, and had suspected of his father's; and I
can perceive it is working, if by -nothing else, by the
vehemence and testiness with which he meets my arguments."
Jack's letter is very brief and very different from
Hugh's.  It begins a little bitterly, alluding disparagingly to some former friends, especially to one young
gambling nobleman Cousin Evelyn warned us against.
He has found them out; he says, and although his reliance on human nature has sustained a shock, and
although (as he writes emphatically) he will never be
able to understand the pretensions to gentlemanly character of people who live on the friendliest terms with
you as long as your purse is full, and cannot see you
across the street when you happen to be in want of a
little assistance;-still he has no doubt the wheel of
fortune has yet its good. turn for him. But in the postcript his tone changes from these rather cynical reflections to the most sanguine anticipations. He has found,
he says, a mine of gold, in the shape of a company for
farming the mines in Peru, where, as he observes, the
Spaniards found the half civilized natives, centuries ago,
eating off silver, and drinking out of gold. And if these
simple natives with their poor implements contrived to
extract such untold wealth from merely scratching, as it
were, the surface of the earth, what may not Englishmen
in the Eighteenth Century discover by penetrating into




352              THE DIARY OF
its heart?  The secretary, he says, who has suggested
these very obvious conclusions to a hitherto marvellously
blinded public, is a wonderfully clever fellow, and his
particular friend.  He is appointed under secretary,
good names being of great value, he says, in the commencement of such enterprises, and already he has
received a hundred pounds as the first instalment of his
salary.
In a second postscript he adds, that the sale of his
commission, now, of course, with such brilliant prospects,
useless to him; especially since the war is over, and
there is no honour to be won, and no service to be ren~dered the country, has brought him in a trifle to meet
his more pressing debts. So that (he adds, considerately) we need not have an anxious thought about his
trifling liabilities, which are, indeed, already all but discharged.
"Poor, dear fellow,' said Mother, with a sigh, as she
laid down the letter; " he is always full of kind intentions."
Father was out when the letters arrived, and he did
not read them till to-day. I never saw him in such a
passion as Jack's letters put him in.
" Brilliant prospects, indeed," he said, "to be the servant of a beggarly trading company I' Good names!'
too good, at least, to be dragged through the mire by a
set of scoundrelly swindlers, just like the South Sea
Bubble."
Irritated more and more by his own indignant words,




MRS. EITTY TREVYLYAN.            353
he first attacked Jack, next himself, and finally Mother
and me. He said we had all been a set of doting idiots,
and that the only way to have saved Jack-would have
been to have let him have his own way from the first)
and go to sea. It had been an instinct of self-preservation in the lad, and we were all more to blame than he.
Now he had been crossed, everything had gone wrong.
But it was too late now. He would go to Falmouth the
next morning, have the old place put up to auction, take
the first ship that sailed for the colonies, and so be out of
hearing when Jack came to the gallows, for there it would
end; nothing short of that, there could be no doubt."
At first Mother's tears fell fast, while I was too
frightened to cry; but afterwards I saw Mother growing whiter and whiter, until at last her tears quite dried,
and she sat quite still with steady eyes and compressed
lips, and her hand pressed firmly on her heart. Then
I burst into tears, and knelt beside her, and took her
hands in mine and sobbed out, "Oh, Father, look, look,
see what you are doing." He stopped in the full current
of his wrath, looked at Mother, stooped and kissed her
forehead, and said in a husky voice,"Polly, I am a brute. I always have been; and you
are an angel. Don't take it so to heart. You know I
don't mean half I say. There, the boy's a kind fellow
after all. It'll all come right; be sure it will. I'm ten
times as good-for-nothing as he is, Polly.  Cheer up,
sweetheart. The wild oats must be sown. Jack'll be
an honour to the old name yet."




354              THE DIABYr oF
But words cannot heal the wounds words can make.
Mother did not say a bitter word or shed a tear; but I
do not like her look.
All day she has been moving gently about, saying
cheering words to us all, especially to Father, who is as
subdued and gentle as she is. But her face has had an
unnatural fixedness, and when I kissed her good-night in
the porch-closet, she folded me in her arms and said,"Kitty, darling, indeed I would not have kept him
from sea, if I had been sure his heart was set on it. I
am afraid I have been very selfish; but oh, Kitty, God
knows, I would have given up seeing him again all my
life to do him good. Poor Jack! God forgive me! Yet,
Kitty, it cannot be too late I Say you do not think it
can?"
There was something in that child-like appeal to me
which pierced my heart more than if I had seen her sobbing in anguish.
But she did not shed a, tear. Her eyes were dry and
bright, and I tried to keep my voice quite firm and cheerful, as I said,"Of course, it is not too late, Mother. We will have
him back to us. He shall take up the farm again with
Father; and they will get on so much better than they
ever did before. You will see."
She shook her head; but she smiled, as if a faint hope
began to dawn in her heart; and I said,"Mother, it is never too late. We can pray for him
night and day. Aad that must help him."




MRS. TITTY TREVYLYAN.              355
But as I sit down here alone, my own heart sinks, and
sinks below the worst fears Father expressed in his
anger.
What ever will make Jack understand about right and
wrong?   Oh, if Hugh were only here."
Yet, alas! if Hugh had been here, could he ward off
all evils?  Could he have warded off one of these evils
from those he loves?
The echo of my own words brings the words of another
sister to my heart," If Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died."
He could have been there! He knew all. But He
kept away. The sisters drank the bitter cup to the dregs.
The brother died.
Then through the anguish came the deliverance and
the unutterable joy.
I will trust. I will never give up trusting. There is
reason.  " The same yesterday, and to-day, and for
ever."
We have passed through a storm of trouble since I
wrote last. For weeks I have not had heart to write a
word, if I had had time.
Have we got through the storm? Are we on dry land
once' more? This trembling- and anxiety, and restless
expectation of something worse, is it only like the uncertainty and giddiness one feels when one steps on dry land
after a rough voyage? Or are we still on the waves,
and is this only a temporary lull?




356              THE DIARY 0F
The day after Father's reading that unhappy letter of
poor Jack's, Mother tried to rise as usual, and come down
stairs; but she fainted whilst dressing; and Betty and I
found it difficult to lift her into the bed again, so heavily
did her slight frame lie in our arms in its helpless unconsciousness.
Father was distracted with alarm when he came to
breakfast, and heard that Mother was ill. He would not
touch a morsel of food, but saddling a horse at once galloped off to Falmouth for the doctor.
When the doctor came, Mother was better, and made
so light of her ailments, that he, himself a stout, florid
little man, who looked as if he had never been ill in his
life, persuaded us we had all been unnecessarily alarmed.
"A momentary suspension of the action of the heart, a
slight disturbance of the circulation, would frequently
bring on consequences," he said, i of the most alarming
kind. Of the most alarming kind, Mr. Trevylyan, to the
uninitiated I There is a slight flushing and trembling.
Sometimes, in ordinary cases, I would have recommended
bleeding or a blister; but your good lady seems not quite
in a state to bear much additional loss of strength. This
evening I will send an especial messenger with an electuary, of which I had the prescription lately from the surgeon of a Spanish ship. I have no doubt we shall be well
enough to do anything-to ride after the hounds if we
please, Captain Trevylyan, in a week or two. A gener.
ous diet, and, above all, cheerful conversation, such as I
am sure (he concluded, making a bow to me) cannot fail




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             357
my dear young lady, with you for the nurse. Above all,
cheerfulness. The first and last ingredient in all my prescriptions is cheerfulness. Life is not long enough, with
all our science, Mr. Trevylyan; with all our science, life
is not long enough for care."
And the rosy doctor mounted his horse, and rode
cheerily away, leaving Father, Betty, and me 4n very different states of mind.
"A very sensible man," said Father; " a very skillful
and penetrating man.  Kitty, you see we must cheer
up." 
And going up to Mother's bedside, he said,"1My dear, the doctor gives us the most cheering accounts. In a few days you will be as usual; indeed, perhaps, better than ever. It really seems quite a blessing,
Kitty," he said to me, as he took his long-delayed breakfast, "'that your Mother had this little attack. It may be
her restoration, quite her restoration. That doctor has
such a quantity of life in him he seems to put it into his
patients."
But Betty took a very different view, and a very gloomy
one. She would do nothing but shake her head ominously, except when she launched out into an attack on the
medicine recommended by the Spanish doctor, who, she
had little doubt, was sent expressly by the Pope or the
King of Spain to murder as many English folks as he
could in a quiet way.  "Not," sihe concluded, " that I
think medicine has much:o do with poor deal' Missis,
one wa3 or the other."




358              THE DIARY OF
So I went back to Mother's chamber to look as cheerful as I could, with my heart full of a terrible dread, of
which Betty's tokens were but the echoes.
All day the flush in Mother's face deepened, and no
effort of mine could keep her from talking with an eager
rapidity quite unlike herself, of having Jack back to us,
and how bright we would make the old home for him,
and how this was the turning-point, and all would soon
be well. " For you know it is not too late, Kitty," she
kept saying. "It is never too late."
Father kept restlessly hovering about the house all
day, occasionally coming in with a gentle step, and saying some pleasant word to her. And at meals, those desolate meals, he repeatedly said to me,"You must not be so anxious, child. You have seen
so little of illness. You take on too much. The doctor
said there is nothing to alarm any one who understands
the matter, nothing in the least alarming; and whenever
I go in, Kitty, she is quite cheery, Kitty, quite cheery.
There is nothing to be anxious about."
And then he would rise with his food scarcely tasted,
and go to the door and whistle for Trusty, and come back
in a minute to assure me, with more vehemence than ever,
there was nothing to be anxious about, nothing at all;
and to beg me to keep up heart, and look very cheery in
Mother's chamber.
But when, as night came on, Mother's eyes seemed to
grow brighte and larger than ever, and hei utterance




MRS. KITTY TRE VYLYA.N            359
more rapid, and at last instead of those sanguine eager
plans about Jack, she began to talk about all kinds of
trifles, and at length I crept out to tell Father I was sure
she wast not better, and he came in, and she asked him
eager rapid questions about things she did not care about
in the least, I shall never forget the look of anguish which
came over his face.
" Oh, Kitty," he said, when I came down afterwards
and found him sitting by the untasted supper with his
face in his hands, " Oh, Kitty, I have killed her."
After that we were obliged to keep him away from her
room. His presence seemed to excite her so painfully.
Again and again, when I left the room for anything during that night, I found him standing listening at the door
with hushed breath, and a face haggard and sunken as if
he had been watching for nights.
It was a dreadful time, Mother's dear gentle voice
raised to that unnatural eager tone, saying things that
were no thoughts of hers, demanding replies to all kinds
of wild questions,-with the knowledge that that other
dear despairing face was watching at the door outside,
and that every one of those quick unnatural tones was
piercing his heart.
In the morning when I came out of the room, he was
standing at the head of the stairs with Trusty sitting bolt
upright beside him. Father laid his hand on my shoulder with questioning looks, which he did not to dare put
in words, while the poor faithful old dog licked my hand
with a little perplexed whine. There was something in




360              THE DIARY OF
his old kind familiar ways which broke the spell of unnatural calm to which the excitement had kept me strained,
and I laid my head on Father's shoulder and wept.
"Poor little Kitty," he said, " my poor little maid!"
and we went down to the hall together, while Betty
stayed in Mother's room.
After that Betty took us all in hand, and reigned as I
suppose the most capable people always will for a time
when there is a storm, and every one feels in danger.
I made a faint proposition that we should send again
for the doctor, chiefly because I thought the ride to fetch
him would be the best thing for Father.
But Father's confidence in the cheery man's skill was
broken, and Betty decidedly prohibited any such expedition.
"There be strange tales," she said, " of folks that live
on the lives of other folks. I don't say I believe them
altogether, but I can't abide his double chin and his
round fat face; nor I believe can Missis."
"But the ride might do Father good," I said.
"I don't see folks have any right to go imposing on
grown-up people as if they were babies," said Betty.
"Poor dear Missis was too much that way herself always,
and if Master mustn't go into the room, and can't be kept'
from hovering about the door like a ghost, the best thing
is to make him of some use."
So Father was appointed carrie; and now, many a
time, it was as difficult to bear as Mother's wandering
words to see him creeping up and down stairs without




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.            36 
his shoes, carrying little cups and trays as laboriously as
if they had been tons weight, with his efforts not to let
a drop be spilt or a spoon jingle.
Betty's treatment was very simple.  She let dear
Mother have what she liked, and do whatever she thought
would make her most comfortable.
"It's my belief they know oft-times, Mrs. Kitty," she
said to me mysteriously, "what's good for them. And
if not, God Almighty only can keep the life in any of us,
and in my opinion we've no right to make them more
wretched than they need be."
Therefore, contrary to all rules I ever heard of, when
dear Mother seemed oppressed for breath, Betty opened
the window and let the sweet fresh air in, and when she
complained of thirst Betty brought her cool fresh water.
On the third night she insisted on sending me and
Father to bed.
" You can't work miracles, my dear," she said, " and
the Almighty doesn't see fit to work them now-a-days.
And if you sit up gazing at Missis another night, you'll
be as bad as she is, and that'll be more of a handful than
I can manage."
So at last, on the condition that I should have Mother
all to myself on the following night, while Betty rested,
and with the solemn promise that I should be called instantly if Mother asked for me, I went to my chamber.
How hard it was to turn from those dear wandering unconscious eyes! To close the door between us seemed
like rolling the stone before a sepulchre. I should have




362              THE DIARY OF
turned back by as irresistible an attraction as that which
draws a poor bird with clipped wings down to the earth
from which it struggles, but for the knowledge how the
opening of the door made that fragile frame start and
tremble, and how eagerly she looked for that unknown
something any sound seemed always to rouse her to expect. I did not expect to sleep for a moment.
Yet after I had laid down and had begun a prayer for
Mother, comforting myself with the thought I could help
her in that way, the next thing I was conscious of was
the quiet dawn stealing up through my casement, and a
sound, not in my ears, but in my heart, of these words,
"I shall not die but live, and declare the works of the
Lord."
I rose up and looked around towards the window.
Everything was so still in that sacred calm of early morning, that I think it would not have surprised me to catch
the glistening of the white garment of an angel going up
through the still pure air beyond the old thorn, beyond
the old elms, beyond the green hill, beyond that soft grey
cloud into the pure light of the dawn, pure as if it
streamed through the gates of pearl.
But there was nothing to be seen, nothing to tell.whose
whisper that was which was echoing softly through my
heart when I woke.
For it was a.Voice, I am sure, a heart and spirit speaking to mine; so distinct, so outside me were the words,
and yet so mysteriously within.
They lingered in my heart with a power beyond that




MRS I2TTY TREFVYL YAN.            363
of any music, and filled it with an unspeakable rapture
of calm and peace.
So I rose and dressed, and said my morning-prayers,
locking out of my open window.
Those words seemed to have taken all fluttering and
hurrying haste and terror from me.
I said to myself," I will not be superstitious-I will not build my hopes
on signs, or omens, or even on these words. Oh, my
Saviour, my Father, I will build on nothing but Thy love.
But yet I will not put away the comfort of those words
from me. They are Thy words, and whatever else they
mean, they mean love. And I will lean-I will rest-I
do lean and rest my whole heart and soul on that-on
Thee."
It seemed to me as if my whole being had been bathed
in a well of living water, when I went back to Mother's
chamber, so fresh it felt, and strong. At the door stood
Father listening as if he had been there long. I stood
and whispered him some words of comfort. And when
I opened the door so noiselessly that Betty did not turn
to look, and crept to Mother's bedside, she looked at me.
She looked into my eyes, with quiet conscious love, she
stretched out her thin hand and laid it in mine; and then
as I sat down and held it in both mine-afraid to show
too much of what I felt-the feeble grasp relaxed, her
breathing came and went, evenly, softly, as a child's. It
was the soft even breathing of sleep.
She slept on until dawn had deepened into day, and




36+              THE DIARY OF
all the many coloured changes by which the hours are
illuminated and distinguished from each other when the
day is new, had passed into the changeless radiance of
mid-day, and there was nothing left by which to mark
the time, but my own hopes, counting every minute of
such repose as a priceless treasure; and my fears for
Father watching, ignorant of all, at that closed door.
At length she opened her eyes, and Betty who had
been watching her, as still and silent as I had been, rose
and brought her some jelly.
And then she asked for Father.
There was no need for me to call him. As soon as the
words had left her lips the door opened without a sound,
and his poor haggard face appeared, inquiring with mute
touching looks what he ought to do.
I rose and led him to the bedside.
Mother held out her hand to him, and said,"Dear, I shall get well."
As he had been so often enjoined by Betty, he tried
hard not to betray his feelings, but just to look quietly
pleased, as if it was just what he had hoped, and to say
some easy, cheering, natural words. But the quiet look
was quite a failure from his poor sunken eyes, and with
the attempt at the cheering word, his quivering lips
failed altogether, and with one passionate sob he sought
to withdraw his hand from hers and leave the room.
But she laid her other hand on his, and he had no resource but to fall on his knees and bow his face over her
hands, and w-ep like a child.




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             365
Betty lifted up her hands in horror, but when she tried
to speak, her voice failed too; so she turned away, and
I knelt down by Father, and in a few minutes led him
gently away.
It was not till Mother was sleeping again, and we were
in the hall together, and Betty brought in the supper, or
whatever that nondescript meal might be called, which
was our first and last that day, that she recovered her
self-command enough to say in answer to an apologetic
remark of Father's concerning his disturbing Mother,"Well, Master, I don't see that there's much to choose
between us all as to that matter; it is no doing of ours,
and we've nothing to boast of, if the Almighty has seen
fit to work a miracle; for that it is a miracle I have no
manner of doubt. There have been signs and tokens
enough to prepare anybody for another drowning of the
world, and we've all done our best to kill her; and
there's Missis sleeping as innocent and as quiet as a
lamb!"
Sweet hallowed nights of hopeful watching, when I lay
awake till I heard her breathing fall into the even cadences of sleep, and woke to hand some little nourishing
draught or. refreshing drink to her, and to hear her dear
voice murmur thanks, or perhaps some sweet old verses
of gratitude from her beloved George Herbert.
Then those delicious days of her gradually returning
strength.1 To watch day by day the precious little steps
of recovery! It was like watching the leaves open, and
the flowers in spring, each day being a new delight; only
16




366               THE DIARY OF
the life whose precious tide was slowly rising thus from
point to point, was no unconscious flood of natural growth
-it was Mother's life!
Then that first Sunday when she was lifted into her
own little porch-closet, and laid on the couch by the window!   She had insisted on being lifted there in the
morning, and that all but Betty should go to church; she
had wanted Betty also to accompany us, but no authority
in the house reached to that.
As I left her, she broke out again into Herbert (which
is her music), murmuring, —
"Christ hath took in this piece of ground,
And make a garden there for those
Who want herbs for their wound.
" Thou art a day of mirth:
And where the week-days trail aground,
Thy flight is higher, as thy birth:
Oh, let me-take thee at one bound,
Leaping with thee from seven to seven;
Till that we both, being tossed from earth,
Fly hand in hand to heaven."
With such holy strains echoing in our ears, and such
gratitude in our hearts, a very happy walk was Father's
and mine to church that Sunday, across the corn-fields,
with the little waves dashing against the rocks far below.
And very real and living were the prayers, and thanksgivings, and responses of the service. They seemed just
as if they were a new song, made expressly for Father
and me that morning.




MRS..KITTY TREVY.LYAY:             67
As we returned, Father said to me confidentially," Kitty, do you understand that poetry of Mr. Herbert's?"
I said, " I thought I did, and that I liked it."
"You do I" replied Father despondingly; "well, I suppose all really religious people do. But I never could."
When I sat by Mother in the quiet afternoon, I told
her something of what Father had said, and she told me
how it had gladdened her as she lay there to hear Betty
singing hymns in her dear old cracked voice, as she went
about her work.
"I am afraid, Kitty," she said, "I have been too dainty
about words and forms. The holy angels no doubt do
not need the delicate spices of quaint fancies, to make
the true prayers and praises of the poorest sweet as incense to them. I felt it to-day as I lay here, and found
the smell of the dewy grass, and the new mown hay,
sweeter than any perfume, and the sound of Betty's Wesleyan hymns sweet as the singing of a cathedral choir.
Yet still," she added smiling, " my own thoughts flowed
back into the channel of old Herbert's poetry, and I sang
in my heart,"'My joy, my life, my crown!'
My heart was meaning all the day;
Somewhat it fain would say:
And still it runneth muttering up and down,
With only this,' My joy, my life, my crown.'
And when Father joined us, she made me read to him
the hu mn,



368                THlE DIARY Ot'
O dreadful justice, what a fright and terror
Wast thou of old,
When sin and error
Did show and shape thy looks to me,
And through their glass discolour thee!
He that did but look up was proud and bold.
"But now that Christ's pure vail presents the sight,
I see no fears:
Thy hand is white,
Thy scales like buckets which attend,
And interchangeably descend,
Lifting to heaven from this well of tears.
" For where before thou still didst call on me,
Now I still touch
And harp on thee,
God's promises hath made thee mine
Why should I justice now decline?
Against me there is none: but for me much."
Father endeavoured to look pleased, but I could see
that he was much perplexed. Nor was his cheerfulness
restored until I repeated to him, at Mother's request,
Mr. Charles Wesley's hymn,"Hark! a voice divides the sky:
Happy are the faithful dead,
In the Lord who sweetly die;
They from all their toils are freed.
Them the Spirit hath declared
Blest, unutterably blest:
Jesus is their great Reward,
Jesus is their endless Rest.
"Followed by their works they go
Where their Head hath gone before:
Reconciled by grace below,
Grace had opened Mercy's door:




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYATY.             369
Justified throug i faith alone,
Here they knew their sins forgiven,
Here they laid their burden down,
Hallowed, and made meet for heaven.
"Who can now lament the lot
Of a saint in Christ deceased?
Let the world, who know us not,
Call us hopeless and unblest:
When from flesh the spirit free,
Hastens homeward to return,
Mortals cry,'A man is dead'Angels sing, A child is born."'
In the evening, when Father and I were alone, he
asked me what I thought Mr. Herbert meant by that
poetry.
I repeated to him the text, "Whom God hath set forth
to be a propitiation, through faith in His blood, that HE
might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth on
Jesus." "I suppose that is what Mr. Herbert meant,
Father," I said.
"Then if he meant that," replied Father, rather testily,
"why couldn't he say it? Religion is good, and riddles
are good in their way,but I don't see the good of mixing
them up together. I shall never be able to understand
the pleasure of twisting the Bible-texts into a puzzle for
the sake of untwisting them again. It's rather hard on
me, Kitty, for I've taken more pains than I can tell to
like that stuff for your Mother's sake. However, Mr.
Charles Wesley's been a great friend to me, with his
hymns. It's a gr -at mercy for me that I've fallen on




370               THE DIARY OF
times when a man may hear sermons as easy to make out
as commanding orders, and religious poetry as plain as
prose."
I little thought that hymn of Herbert's would so soon
come into use as an apology for Mother.
The Monday after that Sunday which was such. a
great high day to us, Betty, coming down in the dusk,
and going to the dairy, fell over the stable-bucket, which
Roger had left in the way, and broke her leg. The
Falmouth doctor came at once and set it, and says it is
not at all a difficult or serious case.
But Betty, never having had an illness which prevented her moving about in her life, grimly sets the
cheery doctor at defiance, and takes it for granted that
she is dying.
"And it's a comfort to me, Mrs. Kitty,"-she said to
me this evening, " to think I am. Leastways a comfort
in some ways. It'll be a warning to Roger as long as
he lives, that's one thing; for if I've told him once,
about leaving that bucket in the way, and said it would
be the death of some one, I've told him so scores of
times; and now he'll see that I told him the truth. That
is one thing, Mrs. Kitty; and another is the signs and
tokens. They'll all be made plain,-the pulling of bells,
the howling of the dog, poor fool, and all. And I'm
mortal glad, Mrs. Kitty," she continued,'" that it's me
after all, and not Missis." Here her voice faltered,
and she hesitated a minute before she went on, and




MRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN.            371
said, "I may as well speak out Mrs. Kitty. It's my
way, and maybe you won't be troubled with me or my
ways much longer. I'm mortal glad it's me and not
Missis, Mrs. Kitty, because of the assurance, the inward
witness in the heart. I got it, my dear, last year. And
one day when Missis was ill, poor lamb, and I asked
her, s'he said she hadn't. So it's better I should be
taken first."
At first I felt a flush of indignant surprise that Betty
could possibly think herself more ready to go to heaven,
than Mother; but gentler thoughts came as soon as I
looked at the poor, kind, rugged face, down which a
few tears were trickling slowly, not I knew from pain;
and I said as steadily as I could, "Betty, you surely
don't mean that you are more fit to meet God than
Mother is?"
"' My dear," she said, " it's the inward witness. Poor
dear Missis, when I spoke to her about it, I'm not even
sure if she knew what I meant. It's God's gift, my dear,
and He gives freely to the poorest sinners. Better than
Missis? I might as well think I'm better than an angel.
But I've got to feel my sins are forgiven, my dear, and
I'm afraid Missis has not. And there's the tokens; so,
if the Almighty would take me instead of her,-I'm a
cross, cantankerous old woman, my dear, at best, and can
never look for anything but quite an under-place in
heaven if the Lord spares me ever so long. So I'd as
lief go at once."
Then as I looked at her as she turned her face away




372               THE DIARY OF
to hide the tears, like an old Spartan as she is, my heart
bowed down before her, and I would have knelt to her.
She would have died for any of us with joy, to gain us
time to be made more ready for heaven, or to win us a
higher place there.
For some time I could scarcely speak. And then I
remembered that hymn of Herbert's on God's justice,
and said part of it to Betty (explaining as I went), where
he says to Justice," For where before thou still didst call on me,
Now I still touch
And harp on thee,
God's promises have made thee mine:
Why should I justice now decline?
Against me there is none, but for me much."
And I told her how dear Mother's eyes had glistened as
she listened to those words.  "Is not that assurance of
being accepted by God?" I said.
"Well, Mrs. Kitty," said Betty, "it do sound cruel
like it. And I suppose the Almighty must allow folks
to say things in their own way; and if it isn't as plain
as might be-it isn't given to every one to speak plainand the Lord can understand-Mrs. Kitty, my dear, the
Almighty can understand, no doubt. I do think sometimes we are all like lisping babes before Him; and if
we don't always make out other folk's lispings, He is the
Father of us all, and no doubt He can. No doubt He
stoops down and listens till He does make it all out; and
by and by, no doubt, He'll teach us all to speak plainer,




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAIN.           373
so that we may understand each other. Mrs. Kitty, my
dear," she concluded, wiping her eyes in a candid way
with a corner of the sheet, " you've given me wonderful
comfort-wonderful comfort, and the Almighty bless you
for It, my dear."
" And so, Betty, you mustn't die yet," I said, smoothing
back a wandering lock of her grey hair which was falling over her eyes; "you must do your best to get well.
We can't spare you, any of us, for a long time."
"That's as the Almighty pleases, my dear," she said,
"we can all be spared a deal easier than we like to
think when His time comes. But there be the cows and
the pigs, and the poultry, and the butter, and it would
be a trial to leave the beasts and fowls, poor fools, to
nobody but Roger. I don't deny that it would; not but
that he means well, and didn't set that bucket on purpose
to break my leg, poor soul, I've no doubt, and all folks
can't be blessed with brains. But if I do get over it,
Mrs. Kitty," she concluded, "don't you ever say it was
the doctor, for I couldn't abide it'; and if anything could
have killed me it would have been his grinning face,
clucking and chuckling away like an old hen when he
was nigh driving me mazed with the pain. If I do
get well, it will be the Almighty, my dear,-the Almighty,
and you, Mrs. Kitty. I only hope, my dear," she said,
shaking her head ominously, "you're not born to trouble,
for surely the Lord gives you a wonderful gift of cheering and nursing folk, and the Almighty don't most times
give His gifts in vain."




XI.
]HREE months since I wrote a line in these
i   pages   The last words seem faint and distant, like a voice across a chasm, as if the
earth had opened beneath my feet and made a great
gulf between me and the day when they were written.
Mother had recovered wonderfully. It was as if some
lingering malady had been lowering over her life, which
spent itself in the tempest of that fever and left her
relieved and almost refreshed, like the air after a
thunder-storm. The enforced rest, the duty of saving
and considering herself, and letting herself be taken
care of, had no doubt much to do with it.
Also, no doubt, there was a merciful hand at work,
and a most tender Providence.
One day Mother and I were sitting sewing at the great
window of the hall. Betty, although limping a little,
was once more in office in dairy and kitchen. Father
had just whistled for Trusty and was off for the furthest
part of the farm. It was the stillest part of the day,
early in a hot afternoon. There was not a sound but
the trickling of the water into the cattle-trough in the
(3'74)




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYA.3 375
court, the occasional buzzing of a fly against the window
or the hum of a stray bee settling on the marigolds and
thyme outside, and Betty's voice humming at her work
in the kitchen with scarcely more variety of intonation
than the bee.
Mother and I had been talking. of Jack.  We had
written to him some time since begging him to come
back to us, at least for a time, saying we thought the
farm was becoming too much for Father, that the old
place was large enough for us all, and that we were all
longing to have him with us again, and then at all events
we could talk over his future plans together.
We had not had any answer. We had explained to
each other again and again how natural it was there
should be some delay. The posts were so irregular at
all times, and although Father had repeatedly ridden to
Falmouth to inquire if there were any letters and had
found none, there were endless ways in which accidents
might have occurred before letters reached Falmouth.
Besides Jack would no doubt have many things to
arrange, especially if he decided on coming back to us;
and perhaps, being no very ready writer, he might not
send a letter at all, but bring us the answer in person.
We were planning how the country might be made less
dull for him, and entering into all kinds of arrangements
by which we would make home bright for him (partly,
I believe, to persuade ourselves of the reality of our
pleasant picture by multiplying its details), when suddenly a horseman galloped on a foaming horse into the




376               THE DIARY OF
courtyard, making the old walls echo and the windows
vibrate with the noise.
Mother and I looked at each other. I suppose I was
as pale as she was, for she said," Sit still, Kitty. Let Betty see what it is."
Betty, never easily hurried, was always especially deliberate when she thought other people were in an unnecessary bustle. It seemed an age while she stood lecturing
the horseman, and then before she limped to the open
window, and gave me the letter, muttering that some
folks always liked to make a dash at the end of anything,
and finish in a fume; putting themselves and other folks
in as much fuss as they could, but that it was her belief
such hurry-scurry was most times only a cover for their
own dawdling.
"Bless your heart, Mrs. Kitty, my dear," she concluded, catching the alarm in my face, "don't look so
scared. It's only a servant of Sir John Beauchamp's;
nothing but some fancy of Mrs. Evelyn's, startling folks
out of their wits."
"Betty, give the man refreshment and ask him to
stay and rest as long as he can," said Mother quietly.
And Betty retired.
It was indeed a letter from Evelyn to me.
It began with tender, soothing, lingering words, quite
unlike her usual way of dashing into the midst of things.
It was meant to "break the news." It only threw my
brain into such a bewilderment, that when I came to
the news my heart beat and my head swam so that I




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYA.              377
could scarcely read it. But when I did take it in, I
was calm again in an instant. For I could only think
of Mother.
I stood a minute afraid to look at her, and irresolute
what to do, when she said softly," Kitty, don't read it, tell it me. I know quite well
it is not good news. And it's about Jack."
I looked at her.  She was sitting with' her hands
clasped as if in prayer. And I knelt down by her and
whispered (how, I can never remember, for the words
seemed to hiss from my lips like some one else's voice),
that Jack had done something for which he was arrested,
and was in prison at Newgate.
"Kitty," she said, "there is no time to be lost. Go
and fetch your Father."
Poor Father   When I found him, and told him, he
never uttered a word of reproach against Jack or any
one. He said, "Poor fellow, poor fellow, I was too hard
with him!" and that was all. We walked home across
the fields in silence.
When we returned Mother beckoned to us from the
window of the porch-closet. Father joined her there. I
remained in the hall below. In a few minutes Mother
called me, and I went up.
" It is quite plain, darling, what we must do," said
Mother, " it is a great mercy it is so plain."
" Father and I must go to him at once," said I.
" Yes," said Mother, "to-morrow."  And she pointed
to a postscript of Evelyn'i letter, which in my excitement




378              THE DIARY OF
I had not noticed, and in which she desired us if we
liked to send the servant home by sea, and take his horse
to ride to London on at once.
Everything was arranged before dawn the next day.
Father was to take his own horse, and I the man's.
We might be in London in less than a week, and have
besides the great comfort of making the journey alone
nos exposed to the questions or prying looks of fellowpassengers.
Betty was too thoroughly one of us not to know our
trouble, at least as far as that Jack was in prison. She
believed it was for debt; indeed we scarcely understood
ourselves whether it was for that or worse.
All night she was up making provision for the journey,
insisting that I should keep quiet in my bed. In the
morning as I was dressing, she said in a rapid eager
way, as she was packing and pressing my things into as
small a bundle as possible, without pausing a moment in
word or work so as to give me a chance of interrupting
he:" Mrs. Kitty, I've put five guineas in an old stocking
in a corner of the bundle. I should have given them to
Master Jack when he went to the wars. But mother
told me to keep them for my burying, and I.promised I
would. But I've been thinking well about it, and I don't
see it would be any sin to break my word.
"For a long time I've been of two minds about it; for
what's the use of a fVne burying to me, any more than to
the rich man in the Bible? Fine buryings won't keep




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYALN.            379
sinners out of the fire, nor will the sores of the poor
body, nor the licking of the dogs, poor fools, keep off the
blessed angels from carrying the soul home. When I die,
Mrs. Kitty, it's my wish that the class members should
carry my body to the grave singing Mr. Wesley's hymns,
while, the angels are carrying my soul, singing their
hymns. Not that I'm altogether sure, Mrs. Kitty, the
angels even will be wanted; for heaven seems nearer a
good bit now, since the Lord died, than it was before;
and maybe we shall step into it all at once, quite natural, without help from any one.  But that's neither
here nor there. It wasn't the burying that made me of
two minds, but my word to mother. I've prayed many
times about it; and last night I saw it all as clear as the
sun. It's my belief that we are to do as we'd be done
by, by the dead as well as by the living. And if I were
dead and had got any one to make a foolish promise like
that I should think it the greatest kindness if they
broke it, and put the money to a better use. So I shall
do the same by mother, Mrs. Kitty. You needn't say
anything to Master Jack about what I've told you. But
it's my belief mother'll be smiling on them guineas from
heaven if she knows about it, if it helps Master Jack;
which is more than she could do in conscience, if they
were spent making brutes of folks on rum and gin at my
burying."
So saying Betty limped down the stairs, leaving me
sobbing out the first easy natural tears I had shed since
the dreadful news came.




380              THE DIARY OF
Mother insisted on coming down to breakfast with us,
And she bid me good-bye, while Father was seeing to the
bits and girths, she looked so calm and cheerful, I could
not help saying," Oh, Mother, don't keep up so. You will break down
so much the worse when we are gone."
" No, Kitty," she said, " I shall not. I am not keeping
up. I believe I am kept up. I cannot understand myself. I cannot feel hopeless about this. I have a persuasion not like persuading myself, but like a prophecy,
that good is to come out of this for Jack and all of us,
and not evil, and the hope strengthens me to pray for
him, as I never prayed for him in my life."
And so we parted.
It was certainly a comfort that the rapidity of our
journey depended not on the will and convenience of indifferent coachmen or sailors, to whom we could not have
explained our terrible reasons for haste (and who would
have looked on our trembling eagerness to get on merely
as the fussiness of a fretful old gentleman and of an impatient girl), but on our own exertions and on those of
our horses.
How the noble generous creatures seemed to catch the
infection of our eagerness I until, for their own sakes,
and for the sake of greater speed in the long run, we had
rather to restrain them than urge them on.
I only remember distinctly two incidents of that journey, so completely were we absorbed by its purpose.
One was on a fine clear morning as we w ere riding down




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             381
a steep, stony hill in a narrow lane, when we saw before
us a gentleman, in clerical dress, on a horse which was
shambling along at its own pace, with the reins on its
neck, whilst the rider was reading from an open book
laid on the saddle before him.
Father was so impressed with the peril of the proceeding, especially as the clergyman's horse made a very
awkward stumble just as we passed him, that he took
off his hat, and said to the stranger,-' Sir, you will excuse an old soldier; but I should
think myself safer charging a battery than riding in that
way on that beast of yours.?
The stranger bowed most politely, said something in a
calm, pleasant voice about himself and the horse understanding each other; but as he thanked Father for his
advice, his face quite beamed with that cloudless benevolent smile no one who has seen it can forget; and I saw
it was Mr. John Wesley.
The second incident which stands out from the dreary
mist of anxiety which hangs about that journey, happened
-n the next morning.
It was not five o'clock, and still rather dusk. We
were always in the saddle as soon as we could see. But
at the end of the town we were leaving, a large crowd
was already gathered. We had to ride through it, and
I never liked the look of faces in a crowd less. Many
were of the very lowest type, dull and brutish, or fierce
with a l3w excitement, and above them rose a dreadful




382               THE -DIARY OF
black thing with arms. At the outskirts of the crowd
we encountered some rough jests. But when we got into
the thick of it, all was quite still. Every eye was riveted
on one spot, and every ear was listening to one calm,
solemn voice, fervent and deep, but always natural and
never shrill (he held it a sin to scream); and before we
came in sight of him I knew it was Mr. John Wesley
preaching.
" Come on, Kitty," said Father, in a low, trembling
voice, laying hold of my rein as I paused an instant;
"don't you see what the people are waiting for?"
I looked at his quivering lips, and did not venture to
ask:. But as I glanced back for a moment, it flashed on
me what it was. It was Mr. Wesley preaching to a
crowd collected to see an execution.'That terrible black
thing with arms was the gallows.
I shall never forget the respectful kindness with which
Uncle Beauchamp welcomed Father when we reached
Great Ormond Street, nor his tender gentleness to me.
Aunt Beauchamp was as kind in her way; but she
went into hysterics; which was perhaps a relief to every
one, as they converted her into an invalid who must be
kept quiet, and left Cousin Evelyn and me free for each
other.
Evelyn explained everything to me, as Uncle Beauchamp did to Father.
Jack was in Newgate; not on the debtor's side, but
worse.




fMRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN.           383
He had taken some money from that Company, only
anticipating his salary, he said, by a few weeks, and, of
course, intending to replace it. But the law does not
deal with intentions, and the act was felony, and he had
to stand his trial. Uncle Beauchamp and Uncle Henderson had engaged the best lawyers to defend him, and
Evelyn said they assured them there was much hope.
"But if the defence fails," I said, looking into Evelyn's
face, " what is the penalty?"
"It may be anything, or it may be nothing," she said,
avoiding my eyes with an evasiveness quite unusual with
her, " the law is so uncertain, every one says."
"It might be anything!" Evelyn and I understood
each other, and we said no more.
Father and I went the next day to Newgate. It was
arranged that we should each see Jack alone to spare his
feelings.
Grim walls with windows placed so as to let in as little light and pleasantness as possible, clanking of chains
on prison bolts, grating of clumsey keys, the careful locking behind us of reverberating iron doors, and through
all a sense of being watched by curious prying eyes, and
then the dreadful certainty that to so many these cells
were but the ante-chamber to a dishonoured grave, made
me feel like a prisoner myself, almost like one buried
alive myself, as I stood alone in a gloomy little room with
barred windows looking on a dull court, trying to pray,
trying to think what I would say to Jack, but unable, try




384              THE DIAIRY OF
as I might, to do anything but mentally repeat words
without meaning, and count the window-bars and chimney-stacks; so that when at last Father came, and I was
led into Jack's cell and left alone with him, I was entirely unprepared, and could only throw my arms around
his neck and sob out entreaties that he would forgive me
for all the rough and cross words I had ever spoken to
him.
"Poor little Kitty," he said, with a deep voice more
like Father's than his own," my poor little sister, you and
Father are both alike, not a reproach, not a complaint;"
and then placing me on a chair, while he paced up and down
the cell, he said, " I did think he would have been in a passion, Kitty, and, I am sure, I wish he had! It would have
been much easier." Then, after a pause, in a tone more
like his own old easy, careless way, " It is the most unlucky thing in the world. I am the most unlucky man in
the world. Only three days and my salary would have
been paid, and everything would have been right. However, one must never look on the dark side. Something
may turn up yet." And then he asked eagerly all that
the lawyers thought.
I said they seemed to have much hope of success.
He seized at this in his old sanguine way, as if success
had been certain, and after talking some time about his
unluckiness, he concluded,"But you know, Kitty, it's a long lane that has no
turning. I always knew that there would be a change of
fortune for me some day. And now I shouldn't wonder




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.            385
if it's on the point of beginning; for, to confess the truth,
they were rather a low money-making set after all that
Company. The secretary's a screw and a perfidious
hypocrite into the bargain. Although not exactly in the
way one might have chosen. I've no doubt it will turn
out a good thing in the end to have done with them.
And as to any little hasty words you may ever have.said,
Kitty," he concluded, as we heard footsteps approaching,
"never mention such a thing again. We all have our
little infirmities, and you were always the best little soul
in the world."
But as I drove back with Father my heart seemed
absolutely frozen. Here were we all breaking our hearts
about the sin, and doing what we could to make it weigh
less heavily on Jack.  And his conscience seemed as
light as air. He seemed to have no conception that he
was anything but unlucky.
How could he ever be made to understand about right
and wrong?
The next evening Uncle Beauchamp came to me from
an interview with the lawyers, in; the greatest perturbation. They said Jack would not enter into their line of
defence, and it seemed doubtful if he could be got to
plead not guilty.
"You must go and talk to him, Kitty," he said, " and
persuade him. If any one can you will. For as to myself," he added, "people's ideas of morality and religion
seem to me so incomprehensibly turned upside down since




386              THE DIARY OF,
the Methodists came into the world, that I cannot make
out anybody or anything."
So next morning early I was admitted to Jack's cell.
"Uncle Beauchamp says you and the lawyers cannot
understand each other, brother," I said," and I have come
to see if I can be of any use."
"The lawyers and I perfectly understand each other,"
said Jack. "They want me to swear to a lie, and I can't.
I did take the money; and if my only defence is to swear
I did not, why then, Kitty, there is no defence, of course,
and I see no way out of it. I thought they would have
found some other way, but it seems they can't."
I felt my whole heart bound with a new hope for Jack,
and I went up to him, and took his hands, and said, looking up in his face,"You would rather suffer any penalty than tell a lie,
brother?"
" Of course, I couldn't swear to a lie, Kitty. What do
you mean?"
" Thank God I" I said; and I could not help bursting
into tears.
Jack paced up and down the cell a minute or two, and
then he paused opposite to me and said very gravely,
"Are you surprised, Kitty, that I will not tell a falsehood? that I will not perjure myself? Did you think I
would? Did you think because I had anticipated a few
days the salary due to me from a set of beggarly tradesfellows,I could tell a deliberate lie, and take a false oath?"
" Oh Jack," I said, hiding my face in ray hands, " how




MRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN.            387
could I tell! since you took what did not belong to you?
It troubled us so much 1"
Jack turned from me angrily, and as I sat leaning my
head on my hands, I heard him pacing hastily up and
down. And then, after some minutes, not angrily but
softly, and in slow, deep accents, very unlike his usual
careless manner, he said,"I understand, Kitty; you thought if your brother
could steal, he could do anything else."
"But you will not, Jack I" I said, kneeling beside him.
"You will not. You will suffer anything rather than do
what you feel to be wrong-to be sin. Thank God,
thank God!"
He sat for some time quite silent, and then he said, a
little bitterly," You seem very thankful, Kitty, for what every one
might not think a very great mercy, to have the way
cleared to the gallows, as it is to me. I suppose you
know a poor woman was hanged the other day for stealing sixpence; and I have stolen fifty pounds. Do you
think Father and Mother will be as glad as you are?"
" Oh, Jack!" I said," you know what I mean, you fed
what I feel. We will move heaven and earth to get you
set at liberty, and I feel such a hope that we shall succeed. I feel that God is on our side now, brother. And
He is so strong to help."
But I felt that if we succeeded beyond my brightest
hopes (and I was full of hopes, for there was prayer, and
I had thought of a plan), I think I shall never know a




388              THE DIARY OF
truer thrill of joy than that morning in Jack's gloomy
cell, when he chose anything rather than do what he felt
wrong.
For it seemed to me my brother was then for the first
time his true self, the self God meant him to be. He was
in the far country still, in the country of husks, where no
man gave him even husks; but might I not hope he was
" coming to himself?"-that the sinforeign to his character
was (as Hugh once said it might) awakening him to the
sin habitual to his character, which was indeed his sin?
My plan was at first regarded as exceedingly wild by
every one but Evelyn. But at last one objection after
another, gave way; and Cousin Evelyn and I were suffered to drive in Aunt Beauchamp's coach to the residence of Elias Postlethwaie, Esq., Secretary of the Original Peruvian Mining Company.
Mr. Postlethwaite wore beautiful ruffles and very
brilliant jewels, but his face wanted that indescribable
something which makes you trust a man, and his manners
wanted that indescribable something which makes a gentleman. He received us with most officious politeness,
taking it for granted that we had come for shares (many
fashionable ladies, Evelyn said, having lately acquired a
taste for such gambling as more exciting than cards).
He was afraid that at present not a share was to be
purchased at any price. The demand was marvellous.
But he did not seem much relieved when Evelyn told him
we had no intention of investing in the Company. And




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK.             389
his manner changed very decidedly when I contrived to
stammer out the object of our visit.
"It is a most painful business, young ladies, a most
painful business. The young gentleman was, moreover,
an intimate friend of mine.  I thought it would have
been an opening for the poor young fellow."
I pleaded Jack's youth, I pleaded his refusal to plead
not guilty, I even pleaded for Father's sake and Mother's,
though it seemed like desecration to make them and
their sorrows a plea with that man. But he could not
be moved. He said it was exceedingly painful, and
quite against his nature, but there were duties to the
public which young ladies, of course, could not understand, but which, at any cost, must be performed. At
last he grew impatient, the boor's nature came out under
pressure, and he remarked with a sneer that those kind
of scenes were very effective on the stage, in fact, always
brought down the house; but that, unhappily, society
had to be guided not by what was pretty, but what was
necessary. In conclusion he said that, in fact, it did not
rest with him; the Governors were suspicious, and had
found fault with the accounts before, and it was essential
an example should be made.
Meantime Evelyn had been reading (I thought absently) over the printed paper on the table, describing
the objects of the Company, and giving a list of the Governors, and at this moment fixing her fingers on two or
three of the principal names, she read them aloud, and
said calmly,17




390              THE DIARY OF
"These are the Governors, Mr. Postlethwaite; and
you say the decision rests with the Governors.. We will
drive to their houses at once. Lord Clinton is one of my
father's most intimate friends."
The manner of the Secretary changed again. "Lord
Clinton," he said nervously, "Lord Clinton, madam, knows
very little of our affairs. In fact, he will no doubt refer
you back to me."
" We will see, sir," said Evelyn coolly, fixing her calm,
penetrating eyes on him.
He winced evidently.
" Lord Clinton," he said, pressing his forefinger on his
forehead, as if endeavouring to recollect something; " ah,
I remember, there was a little mistake there, a little mistake which, but for press of business, should have been
corrected long ago. Lord Clinton's name was put down
inadvertently, without his having been consulted."
"Then the Hon. Edward Bernard, or Sir James Delaware will do as well," said Evelyn; "come, cousin," she
added, rising, "there is no time to be lost. I suppose,
Mr. Postlethwaite, those two gentlemen were consulted
before their names were printed?"
"Certainly, my dear madam, certainly!"' he replied.
"But, excuse me, what will you say to these gentlemen
that they do not know already, or that I could not explain as well, and save you the trouble?"
"Thank you, the trouble is nothing, Mr. Postlethwaite,"
said Evelyn quietly. "I win recommend these gentlemen," she continued very deliberately, "who, you say,




MRS. KITTY TIREVYL YAN             391
have had their suspicions roused about the accounts, to
look into the accounts and to see if no other victim can
be selected for the office of scape-goat except my cousin,
Mr. Trevylyan."
His keen fox-like eyes quailed visibly before her clear,
open gaze.
"My dear madam," he said after a pause, " Mr. Trevylyan is your cousin; your cousin, and an intimate friend
of mine. The Governors, I confess, are much irritated,
but we must not too easily despair. Leave the matter to
me, and we will see what can be done."
"Very well, sir," said Evelyn; "if youz will see what
can be done, Iwill not. You will let us know to-morrow."
And she swept out of the room, Mr. Postlethwaite
bowing her to the steps of the carriage.
"What do you think will be the end of it, Evelyn?"
I said when we were alone in the carriage, for I felt very
much bewildered.
" The end of what?" said Evelyn.
"Of this terrible affair of Jack's," I said.
"I cannot see quite as far as that, sweet little cousin,"
she said; "but I think I see the end of Mr. Postlethwaite
and the Original Peruvian Company."
" And the prosecution?" I said.
"How can there be a prosecution, dear little Kitty,"
she said, " when the prosecutor is hiding his head, for
fear of finding himself in Jack's place, and when the
Company is scattered to the winds?"




9.2              THE DIARY OF
"He seemed a terribly hard man," I said; "I never
saw any one like him before, Evelyn. It makes me quite
shudder to think of him. And you really think the whole
thing was a deception?"
"Well, children," said Uncle Beauchamp, when we
returned, smiling as he caught Evelyn's triumphant
glance, "safe out of the lion's den at all events I I thought
Kitty was to have brought the lion himself in chains of
roses, like a fairy queen as she is. But she looks as if
she had suffered in the encounter," he said, kissing my
cheek, which was wet with tears.
"Kitty is only half-pleased," said Evelyn.  "She
scarcely-knows whether to rejoice about Jack, or to weep
over the wickedness of human nature in the person of
Mr. Postlethwaite; whereas I, on the other hand, having
a hard and impenetrable heart, scarcely know whether
to be most pleased that Cousin Jack is safe, or that Mr.
Postlethwaite is not safe. I always have thought it one
of the most delightful prospects held out to us in the
Psalms, that the wicked are to be taken in their own net.
But to draw the net tight with my own hands was a
luxury to which I scarcely dared to aspire."
Then she narrated the interview. Uncle Beauchamp
assured Father and me that all would be right; and I
was permitted to go at once to Jack, and tell him all we
had accomplished.
Jack was very thankful, and most gentle and affectionate to me; but he said,



MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             393
"Don't think me the most ungrateful fellow in the
world, Kitty; but I am not sure really after all, whether
it wouldn't have been easier on the whole to have been
sent to the colonies, or even put out of the way altogether,
than to have to meet every one, and feel, as I do, that I
have been the most selfish, cowardly dog in the world,
all the while I thought myself a fine, open-hearted, generous fellow. And," he added in a lower voice, " I'm not
sure that that isn't easier than to have to look at one's
self as I have had to for these last few hours. It's a terrible thing, Kitty, to be disgraced in your own eyes."
"Don't talk so, Jack," I said. "Say what you will to
yourself and to God, but not to me. It will do you no
good; and I can't bear it. You don't know, Jack, how
good and noble you may be yet," I said, and I put my
arm within his, and looked in his face, and said, "I should
feel proud to walk with you, Jack, now through London,
in that very dress; the people might say what they would,
but I shouldn't mind a bit, for I should feel'that is my
brother, who would rather die than swear to a lie.'"
"It's a brave little Kitty," he said in rather a husky
voice; "but, hush, Kitty!'3 he added hastily, " hush, for
God's sake! don't lift me up on my fool's pedestal again!"
But as I went away he called me back, and said
softly,"You have hope of me, Kitty; don't give it up, for
heaven's sake, don't! and try to make Father and Mother
have hope of me. It does me good to think you have, for
God knows I have little myself."




394              THE DIARY OF
The next day Father and I went to him together; but
that interview I cannot describe, because I never can
think of it without crying, much less write. How Father
begged Jack's pardon, and Jack Father's, and they both
fell into weeping. It is such an overwhelming thing to
see men like Father and Jack hopelessly break down,
and cry like children.
To women, I think tears -are a natural, easy, overflowing of sorrow. But from men they seem wrung, as if
every drop were almost bled in anguish from the depths
of the heart. With us tears are a comfort, to men they
seem an agony.
But Evelyn was right. In a few days the Original
Peruvian Mining Company's splendid' offices were to be
let, and Elias Postlethwaite, Esq., was nowhere to be
found.
And the prosecutor having come to nothing, of course
the prosecution came to nothing too.
But that was not the chief joy; not by any means the
chief joy to me, great as it was.
The day after I had told Jack the effect of our interview with the Secretary, I was permitted to sit with him
some time in his cell.
At first I talked to him about home, but I thought he
seemed absent, and after a little while he said abruptly," Kitty, I had a very strange visitor yesterday evening
after you left,-an old sailor called Silas Jold,-who it
seems finds his way into all the prisons and to the hearts
of the prisoners in a very remarkable way. He was a




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN..            395
sailor in his youth, and a very bad fellow from his own
account; involved in all kinds of horrors in kidnapping
blacks from the African coast. At last he grew tired of
his wild life, and settled down in business in London, and
married. Not long after this a poor workman got him
and his wife to go and hear Mr. Wesley at the Foundry.
They were not convinced in a moment, but before long
everything was thoroughly changed with them. They
found great happiness in religion; and after a time he
gave up his business to teach poor outcast children at a
schoolin connection with Mr. Wesley's meeting-house at
the Foundry at a salary of ten shillings a week. For
seven years he worked from morning till night for these
destitute boys. He trained three hundred of them, teaching them to read and write, and fitting them for all kinds
of-trades. But one morning, when he and his boys were
attending Mr. Wesley's five o'clock morning preaching,
the text was,'I was sick and in prison, and ye visited
ne not.' The reproach pierced his heart, he said, as if
our Lord had looked sorrowfully at him while he spoke
the words. For some days he was wretched, and from
that time he has made it his work to visit every cell in
every prison to which he can find admittance. He has
gone in the cart to the gallows with criminals, praying
for them all the way. He has brought joy, absolute joy,
with the news of God's mercy, into condemned cells.
He has made the most hardened criminals weep in an
agony of sorrow for their sins,-such an agony, Kitty
that afterwards, when they were able to believe God had




396              THE DIARY OF
forgiven them their sins, it seemed nothing to go to the
gallows. And what seems to me more wonderful still*
(this the jailer told me), sheriffs, hangmen, and turnkeys
have been seen weeping as he exhorted or comforted the
prisoners. The authorities, civil and ecclesiastical, have
tried again and again to keep him out of the prisons, but
he will not be kept out. And so yesterday evening,
Kitty, he found his way to me."
I said nothing, but waited for him to go on. After a
little pause he continued,"He found his way to me, and when I am free, if ever
I am, I will find my way to him; for he prayed with me,
and prayer like that I never thought there could be. He
prayed as if he saw my heart, and saw our Saviour. I
shall never forget it,-I trust I shall never forget it.
What the words were I am sure I cannot tell. They
did not seem like words, so fervent, so sure, so reverent,
so imploring, so earnest, it seemed as if he would have
stormed heaven, and yet all the time the great power of
them seemed to be, that he felt God was on our side,
willing, to give, delighting to give, stretching out His
hands to give!"
"You had told him something of yourself," I said,
when he had been silent a little while.
"I don't know what I told him, Kitty, or what he
found out. I only know I intended at first to tell him
nothing; I thought he was going to treat me as one case
among a thousand of spiritual disease. But he came to
* Stevens' "History of Methodisr."




MRS. KITTY TREVYL AN.             397
me like a friend, like a brother, so full of respect, so full
of pity, there was no standing it, and before he left I
was telling him what was in my inmost heart."
" And it has done you good, Jack," I said.
"It has opened a new world to me," he said. "It has
made me see that what you and Father felt for me in
my sin and trouble, God felt infinitely more. He has
been grieved at my doing wrong, because sin is the worst
misery, and His one desire and purpose is to lift me out
of it up to himself. And He will do it, Kitty; I do believe He will do it."
It was some days before the formalities about Jack's
liberation could be arranged, and very precious days
they were to him. Silas Jold saw him often, patiently
encountering his variable tempers, and meeting his shifting difficulties; for at first Jack had many difficulties,
and occasionally, I must confess, he was in an irritable
state that did not always contrast favourably with his
old complacent equanimity. He often reminded me of
a sick child waking up with a vague sense of hunger and
discomfort which it could only express by fretting. But
the great fact remained. He was no longer asleep, his
whole being was awake. At one time he would defend
himself captiously against his own previous self-accusations; at another he would bitterly declare that all hope
of better days for him was an idle dream,-he had
fallen, not perhaps beyond hope of forgiveness hereafter,
but quite beyond all hope of restoration to any life




398               THE DIARY Of
worth living here. Yet although often, when I seemed
to leave him on the shore, I found him again tossed back
among the breakers, and buffeted by them hither and
thither; nevertheless, on the whole, there was advance.
There was a steadily growing conviction of his own
moral weakness, and a steadily growing confidence in
the forgiveness and the strengthening power of God,
until on the day when he came out, when he and I were
alone in the study in Great Ormond Street, he said,"It is the beginning with forgiveness, Kitty, that
makes all the difference! Easy forgiveness, indeed, may
make us think lightly of doing wrong, but God's is no
easy forgiveness. The sacrifice which makes it easy for
us was God's. It is pardon proclaimed with the dying
words of the Son of God, and sealed with His blood.
It is wonderful joy to know that God does not hate us
on account of our sins; but I think it is almost greater
joy to know that He hates our sins for our sakes, and
will not let our sins alone, but will help and encourage
us, yes, and make us suffer anything to conquer them,
and to become just, and true, and unselfish."
Many outside difficulties remained. It seemed difficult to find any career open to Jack. He was ready to
try anything, and to bear any humiliation, but the suspicions and distrust which doing wrong necessarily bring
on people are a cold atmosphere for anything good to
grow in. If he smiled, for instance, Aunt Henderson
was apt to think hin impenitent. If he was grave,




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYA.              399
Uncle Beauchamp was disposed to consider him sullen.
It is so terribly difficult for any one who has fallen openly
to rise again. If he stands upright and looks up, some
people call him shameless; if he stoops and looks down,
others call him base. At first we thought of home and
the old farm life; but much as I should have liked to
have him with us again, I could not help seeing with
some pain that although Jack made not an objection,
and endeavoured to enter into it, the.thought evidently
depressed him.
One morning while Father and I were debating these
matters, to our amazement the footman quietly ushered
in " Mr. Spencer."
Hugh had that day arrived with Tom from America.
Father left me to tell him all the sad yet hopeful history
of the last few weeks, and when almost before we had
come to the end of it, Jack came in, I went away and
left them alone together.
Jack told me afterwards that Hugh's warm welcome,
and his honest and faithful counsel, were better than a
fortune to him. "It is such a won erfdl help," he said,
"to feel you are trusted by one everybody can trust like
Hugh."
I know so well what that is. At one time I used to
be afraid to give myself up to the feeling lest it should
be idolatry, but I have got over that fear now after
talking it over with Hugh, because he says I am just as
wonderful help to him, which makes it plain that it must




400              THE DIARY OF
be because God makes it so. Hugh says it is no more
worshipping each other to feel we can work twice as
well together than it is worshipping the sun to feel we
can work better in the daylight.
Hugh has set it all right for Jack-Hugh and poor
Cousin Tom, who came back with him. Hugh thinks.
the old life at home would not be good for Jack; he
thinks Jack and Father naturally fret each other a
little, and if they control themselves so as not to fret
each other, they will fret themselves all the more by the
effort. Besides, he thinks the life would be very depressing for Jack. It would be like a life of old age
begun in youth, that monotonous routine of work pleasant and calm enough, with the busy day of life behind,
but most depressing and trying, with nothing behind but
lost opportunities,. a closed career, and a wasted youth.
It was therefore arranged that Jack should go to
America, and take charge of a tobacco plantation, which
Tom had recently purchased in South Carolina, while
Tom remained at home to assist his father. The relief
to Jack was evidently very great, and I was glad it was
all settled before we returned home, as the discussions
might have been painful to Mother.
In order to complete these arrangements we spent
some days at Hackney. Aunt Henderson informed me,
with a grim satisfaction, that Uncle Henderson's demure
nephew had disappeared with a considerable sum of
money. The loss of property was evidently more than




MRS. KZTTY TREVYL YA.            401
compensated by the fulfillment of prophecy, and by the
manifest discomfiture of Calviniistic doctrine in the person of her Presbyterian foe.
Uncle Henderson abandoned that field of controversy
altogether; and if any one at any time lifted up a faint
protest in favour of Mr. Whitefield and Lady Huntingdon, the utmost Aunt Henderson would concede was,
that "there were exceptions, merciful exceptions; that
there-was, in short, no limit to the divine mercy; that she
believed there were even Papists that would be saved."
The disappearance of the nephew and the money was,
in its )ay, as great a relief to Cousin Tom as to his
mother.
"You see, Cousin Kitty," he said, "I was determined
to submit to anything, for I felt I deserved it. But it
is a comfort to feel that I can be of some use to father,
and that I am coming back to work. for them, and not
only to eat fatted calves."
" I have no doubt, Cousin Tom," I said, " that after
the welcome no hired servant of his father's worked like
the forgiven son did."
"And I have no doubt," he replied, " that he enjoyed
toiling in the sweat of his brow as much in its way as
the feast."
"I think the forgiven children our Lord meant all
do," I said.
A glimmer of understanding glanced out from Cousin
Tom's shaggy brows, and he said,"Do you remember, Cousin Kitty, once telling me




402              THE DIARY.OF
that conversion was not a closed door between us and
God, but an open door through which I must go? Well,
I was a long while getting to understand that, but I
think I am beginning now."
These were very happy days at Hackney. Aunt Henderson was so interested to hear all about Mother.
When I related to her Betty's treatment of the fever, she
said Betty was quite right in considering her recovery
a miracle, for that such conduct was nothing less than
murder and madness.
But her heart was too softened and humbled with
joy-the joy of having her boy home again-to be very
severe on any one's errors-except the demure nephew's,
without whose delinquencies and misbeliefs her controversial weapons might-have rusted on the shelf.
When t attempted to thank her for Tom's generous
conduct to Jack about the plantation in South Carolina,
she stopped me at once," Kitty, my dear, every shilling we have in the world
would be nothing for me and mine to repay to you and
yours. What you and Mr. Spencer have done for Tom
and for us is beyond thanks or payment, and compliments
are not in my way. Poor dear Sister Beaachamp understands that kind of thing. But I never did. But, my
dear, if at any time any of you are ill, don't hesitate to
send for me to come and nurse you. I do know something about physic, which is more than can be said for
any of you, poor Sis'er Trevylyan among you; and I'd




MRS. EULTY TREVYLYAN.            403
go from one end of the earth to the other, and wear
myself to a skeleton with pleasure to do any of you any
good in my power. So only you promise, Kitty, my
dear, and I should feelit quite a burden off my mind."
I could not help inwardly trembling at the thought
of the snails' broth, the severe medical discipline, and
the collisions *hat must inevitably occur in such a case
between Aunt Hendersoin and Betty. I could only say
I trusted we should all keep well for a long time, and
that it would be a delight to me to render the same
service to Aunt Henderson.
So we are once more at the dear old home. Our own
old party,-Father, and Mother, and Jack, and Hugh,
and I; for Hugh always was one of us, although now he
is one of us in a nearer way.
How nearly we have all been severed in the storms
of this "troublesome world." And how sweet the past
dangers make the present calm.
There is much indeed still to remind us that we are
at sea, on the open sea, with no promise of exemption
frdm storms in time to come. But we are not without a
Pilot; and we have proved Him, which is something to
gain from any storm.
Mother is much more willing to part with Jack for
America than we dared to hope she would be. She says
she feels it easier to part with him now than when he
went to the army in Flanders. She feels hle is not going
alone. And by that, we know well, she does not only




404              THE DIARY OF
mean that Hugh is going with him to settle him in the
new country.
For Hugh is going, but with a hope that makes his
going easier for us both than when he left us last.
For a few days after our return, we had a visit from
Cousin Evelyn's great-uncle, our new vicar.
He looked more aged and thinner than when we saw
him last; and he was more nervous than ever.
He said he believed it was too late to transplant an
old man like him from the centre of civilized and learned
life at Oxford to what he hoped he might term, without
offence, a region rather on the outskirts of civilization.
He said, between, wrecking and poaching, aversion to
paying tithes, their Cornish dialect, and what he could
not help calling remnants of native barbarism on the one
hand, and Methodism on the other, he could make nothing whatever of the people, and if any one else could, he
was sure they were welcome to try.
He had therefore come to propose that Hugh should
take the curacy, with a liberal salary. He himself
would settle in London. He had spoken to the Patron,
who, considering the circumstances, said perhaps it was
the best thing that could be done. So all is settled.
Hugh and Jack are gone. They sailed from Falmouth.
I feel more anxious now they are actually gone than
when it was first proposed. From not having much
imagination I never can measure the pain of things




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAT.             405
beforeha d, which sometimes makes it worse afterwards.
The ship they sailed in is an old one. 1 heard some
sailors talking disparagingly of her as we left the quay.
And the evening after they left was stormy. Heavy
masses of thunder-cloud gathered in the west.as I
looked from the cliffs, just where I thought the ship
must be.
And Betty shakes her head again, and says it is of no
use boding ill, but she has seen and heard very dismal
things of late.
And when I combated her fears, and reminded her
what terrible things she had heard about Mother, she
only nodded and compressed her lips, and reminded me
that, if miracles were worked, and Mother was spared,
nevertheless she broke her own leg, to say nothing of
Master Jack; and miracles can't be expected at all
times. She only wishes she had not been a poor crippled old woman, or she would have gone herself to take
care of Master Jack. She has heard terrible tales of the
Indians and blacks; and who was to get up his linen
and darn his stockings?  However, she will hope for
the best. Folks have got out of their hands alive, she
believes, and she trusts Master Hugh will, and that we
shall see him back again safe and sound; but she shall
be thankful when we do, that is all.
"But, Betty," I said at last, struggling between tears
and anger, or rather between anger at her for'her forebodings and at myself for mirding them,-" Betty, it is




to6               THE DIARY OF
no better than the heathens to heed such fancies. We
must open our hearts wide to the Bible, and let the light
of the truth and the breath of the Spirit shine and search
through every corner. What are all the forebodings in
the world to one hour of hearty prayer? Reinember,
prayer was stronger even than St. Paul's forebodings;
for he said, he'perceived that the voyage would be
with much:turt and damage, not only of the ship, but
also of their lives.' Yet, afterwards when he had fasted
and prayed he stood forth and said that God had given
him the lives of all that were in the ship; and though the
ship was wrecked, not one life was lost."
"There be some prayers," said Betty, "that can move
heaven and earth."
"And prayer was stronger than prophecy once," I said,
-"not the prayer of an apostle, Betty, but of a poor
sinful heathen city. Nineveh was saved, let Jonah be
disappointed as he might at his words being set aside."
"Well, Mrs. Kitty," said Betty, dryly, becoming very
busy and energetic about her work, "I hardly take it
kind of you to put me down with that poor selfish oldJew.   I've thought many a time it as wonderful the
Almighty should speak by him as by Balaam's ass,running away from his work, nearly sinking the ship
and the sailors, and then sulking and creusling like a
spoilt child, because the Lord was more pitiful than he,
and the poor sinful men and women of that great city,
and the poor harmless dumb beasts were spared. I
can't say but I do feel hurt to be likened to him. All I




MSRS. KITTY TT EVYLYA.           407
know is, I pray. night and day for Master Jack and
Master Hugh; and if Master Jack and Master Hugh do
come back safe and sound, cruel glad I shall be."
Betty," said I, "you know I never meant to compare you to the Prophet Jonah; I only said that God
even turned from His own threatenings when people
prayed to Him long ago; and who can say how much
even our prayers may help those we love now? He can
send His angels, and one of His angels is stronger than
all the storms on the ocean; or He can stretch out His
hand, and the poor sinking Peter can walk on the sea.
I want you. to think of God's promises and not of signs,
and tokens, and our forebodings. I want you to hope,
Betty, because I know you love us all so dearly; and
the more we hope the. better, I think, we pray; and
sometimes I find it hard to hope myself, and I want you
to help and not to hinder me."
"Well, my dear," said Betty, relaxing, " young folks
most times find it easy enough to hope. If the sun shines
for an hour, they think there'll never be winter again;
and if old folks don't keep their wits about them, where'll
the fire-wood be when winter comes?
"And Mrs. Kitty, my dear, I meant no disrespect to the
Prophet Jonah; poor fearful soul, he had his troubles,
sure; and if I'd been in his place,.I won't say I
mightn't have been worse than he, although I do hope
the Almighty would have kept me from caring for some
poor bits of leaves, that grew up like mushrooms in
a night, just because they made me cool, more than for




408                 THE DIARY.
all the people in that great town, specially the innocent
babes and the dumb beasts.  I'm a cross-grained old
soul, Mrs. Kitty, my dear, and my temper's a little
particular at the best of times; but I'd be content to
sit a helpless cripple all the rest of my life in the chimney-corner and watch Roger, poor fool, or that poor
clumsey hussy blundering away at the beasts and the
butter (though I won't deny it might worry me into my
grave), if I might see you and Master Hugh and Master
and, Missis all here together, and know Master Jack
was doing well,-and who knows but I may?    For I
don't deny that the Lord's mercies are beyond everything; and if He disappoints folks, it's most times by
giving them more than they ask and better than they
hope. Leastways, Mrs. Kitty, my dear, that's been His
way with me."




XII.
T is now two months since Hugh and Jack
left us. We have had letters full of hope and
promise; and all the weight of foreboding
which settled down on me during the long days of silence
between their leaving and our hearing seems melting
away. Every breath of this soft spring air, every smile
of this life-giving spring sunshine seems to blow or shine
my cares away.
I think the delight of seeing new things -is nothing
compared to the delight of seeing old things grow into a
new beauty at the touch of a new season, or in the light
of a new joy. That is, living things, things of God's
making. I can lever fancy taking the pleasure in seeing
even those wonderful forests Hugh writes about in the
New World, that I do in watching these very same dear
old elms which have bent down over me from my childhood wake up branch by branch, and twig by twig, and
spread their delicate young leaves in the air, until they
grow thick enough to hide in deep bowers of shade the
soft nest which those two thrushes have been so happy
building and furnishing, and where the mate is now singing in low tender tones' while the motier-bird broods
over her nestlings, and the gentle winds rock the cradle.
(409)




410               THIE DIARY OF
Those American forests, with their depths of pillared
shade, and all the rich traceries of their brilliant creepers, would be only a picture to me; a glorious picture
indeed, painted by the Master's hand, but wanting -the
sweet fragrance of time and home which breathes to me
from every blossom of the hawthorn under my chamber
window.
And now there is another new light on all the dear
familiar old places. - For Hugh is coming back so soon,
so soon; and we are to work together, he and I, all our
lives long, for the good and happiness of the old parish
and the old friends; to bring new eternal hope and life,
I'trust, into many a heart and home.
It is the wonderful power of life in nature which seems
to thrill the heart with the conscious presence of Him
who is the Life; far more than the most glorious scene
which we cannot look at long enough to see it grow, and
bloom, and change, until, instead of lying merely on the
surface of our minds as a-vision, it possesses our hearts
and grows into them as a part of our life. The beauty
of all beautiful things says, " God has been here."  But
the Life in the lowliest living thing in the tiniest moss
which puts forth a fresh green star to-day, in the little
opening leaf which has -burst the gummy casing in which
it was encased yesterday, and flutters in the air and sun
this morning (with the crumples of its long winter packing not yet fluttered out of it),-in the trembling snowdrop which a touch can crush, but which all the weight
of the inanimate earth could not keep from clearing its
way up to the light,-LIFE, in its lowliest developments,




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             411
says, not merely, " God has been here," but " God is
here;" not only, " The Master's hand has been on us, see
how perfect His work is!" but "The life of the Life
Giver is breathing through us, feel the joy of His presence 1" And that seems to me to go much deeper into the
heart. What is a remembrance to a presence? What is
a letter to a voice?. What is a picture to a touch?
I was sitting to-day by the well-spring in the wood
from which the water wells up so gently, so peacefully,
without noise or stir, that it often makes me think of the
pool which the angel troubled, and made its waters healing. So strong is the power of life for'every creature
near it which seems to flow from that little spring. The
first spring flowers always come there, which is one of
the reasons why I know it so well, because every year I
always gather her first nosegay there for Mother. And
so deep and hallowed is the quiet of the place, that, as a
child, I often used to fancy it must be something else
than mere common wind and water which made the
flowers quiver and the leaves flutter as at the silent touch
of a hand they loved. And, as it is, I sometimes wonder
if there are not a great many more living beings busy in
the world around us about God's work than we know of.
Because, we use, machines to save toil and to spare hands;
but where work is not toil, but delight, and where the
workers are " ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands," why should lifeless machinery do
what living hearts always do so much better?
But, however that may be, Hugh says, matters com



t 2z             THE DIARY OF
paratively little, because nothing is done in God's world
by dead laws made ages since, nor by lifeless machinery
set going -long ago, and only generally superintended
from a distance. Everywhere the agency, he says, is
living, not mechanical, whether the work of happy ministering spirits, or of the One Living Presence which is
better and nearer and dearer than all.
Mother and I have been having long talks as we have
been sitting at our spinning or sewing, and it seems to
me it is our transplanting these poor limited thoughts of
ours into heaven and eternity; that makes half the difficulty, if not all, in these.questions of predestination and
assurance about which some Christian people have been
fighting so bitterly of late.
We want to have everything sealed, and settled, and
written down in unalterable decrees and irreversible
title-deeds, forgetting that deeds and decrees are of value
simply because the people who made them may die or
change; while the grand security of the gifts of God is
that it is God who gives them. The Giver lives for ever
and is always at hand. I do not think He will give us
any other security. I am sure we can have none so strong.
Unbelief, like Eve, craves a security independent of
God. But independence of God is death; and faith,
accepting the living God as the security of His own
promises, finds in such dependence not only security but
life. Unbelief would have some sentence, some irrevocable decision, to build on. God gives us no such poor
abstractions lo rest on apart from Him. His promises




MUeS. KITTY TREVYLYAN             413
are all personal, all made to present faith. He says,
"My sheep shall never perish, neither shall any pluck
them out of My hand."  "I will never leave thee, nor
forsake thee."  " What shall separate us from the love
of Christ?"  And if the cold heart, seeking. security
against itself, asks, "But can I pluck myself out of Thy
hand? Can Iever forsake Thee? Though neither things
present, nor things to come, nor life, nor death, can separate, may not sin?"-still no answer comes but, "I love.
T keep. Abide in Me."
If we seek for one promise to past faith, for one
word of encouragement to any except those who are
turning to God, we may search through the Bible in vain.
Turn to God, all is light. Turn from Him, all is shade,
your own shadow.   God gives no promises except to
faith, and to faith in exercise.
But if the trembling, clinging heart, weeping uver its
own- weakness, asks the same question, " Can I ever pluck
myself from Thy hand? Can I ever forsake Thee?" it
is still the same answer, but in a tone of tender pity
which changes it into the most enrapturing assurance.
"Abide in Me. I love. I keep."
To strorg faith this is absolute assurance. To feeble
faith no stronger assurance can be given. If all the ingenuity of all the divines in the world were taxed to find
a formula stating in abstract terms the security of the
believer, despondency would baffle them all, and be sure
to find some flaw to exclude itself. Therefore, I think,
God takes another way, and draws the trembling, doubting, desponding heart through the very destitution of
18




414               THE 1IARY OF
security to himself, to the security which is safety,
whether it isfelt to be so or not, and which, when it is
felt to be safety, is life and joy besides; to the fortress of
the Father's house, to the sanctuary of the Father's heart.
And once there, what child would not smile at all the
security of documents,-weeping on His bosom, "I would
rather trust Thee."
God will not suffer us to rest on things, on words, on
anything in our past, on anything even in His promises
apartfrom, himsef.
" Restoration to God," Mother said, " is the very end
and object for which we are redeemed.'Thou hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood.' And God loves us too
truly to suffer that anything shall be a substitute for living, loving communion with himself."
It seems that during our absence in London, when
Mother and Betty were left alone together, they had
many discussions. At first, these were at times rather
hotly controversial. But one day Betty said it made her
head so dizzy she felt like going mazed, to be spinning
round and round always in the same place, as it was her
opinion Missis and she had been doing. She therefore
proposed that instead of talking so much they should
read the Bible together, with one of Mr. Wesley's hymns
by way of a prayer. And it was wonderful, Mother
said, how much better they grew to understand each
other after that.
"For," said Mother, "to confess the truth, Kitty, I
never forgot what Betty said to me, one day when I was




MRS. KITTY TREVYL YAN.            415
ill, about assurance and the witness of the spirit." So
at last one evening, after reading the Bible together,
Mother and Betty had the conversation which Mother
thus related to me.
They had been reading together the eighth chapter of
the epistle to the Romans, and had dwelt particularly
on the verses, "There is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus," and LThe Spirit
beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of
God."  Betty told Mother what she had told me, how,
after weeks of gloom and wretchedness, in which the
sense of her sins weighed on her like a darkness that
could be felt, one day she saw the burden of her sins all
laid on her Saviour; she saw how He bore them in His
own body on the tree, and bore them away and buried
them in His own grave,'and saved her. And she felt
she was forgiven, and her whole heart overflowed with
speechless gratitude and joy.
Mother replied that she had more than once felt her
heart melt into gratitude and joy when she had looked
at the Cross, but that afterwards the recollection of her
sins had come back on her and weighed her down again.
She thought such an assurance of salvation as Betty
spoke of was only given to great saints, and only to them
when their faith and love were all but perfected. And
all she ventured to hope for for herself was that one day
perhaps, on her death-bed, hope might at last overbalance
fear, and she might depart in trembling trust.
But Betty said she did not believe the Almighty meant
His children to creep through the world with a halter




\6l              THE DIARY OF
round their necks, because it might keep them humble to
remember that if they didn't take care, one day they
might be hanged.' No father on earth with a heart in
him would treat the worst child who wanted to become
better, like that. " Leastways," said she, "that wasn't
your way, Missis."
"Better, perhaps, if it had," said Mother, thinking
mournfully of Jack. "Earthly love is selfish at best.
But God will never indulge His children, because He
loves them too much. Because He loves us He can bear
to see us suffer anything that will do us good, and if
it would keep us humbler and safer to wait for our pardon
till we are safe from sinning, God could bear to hide His
love from us, though it might grieve Him at His heart."
"Yes, sure, He could," said Betty, " if it would do any
poor soul good to be treated so; but it's my belief it
wouldn't, and that the Lord knows better than to do
such a thing. And as to MV/aster Jack," she added,
" please God, Missis, you and Master mayn't never take
to such way with him. For I won't deny that if you
and Master were to sit in the hall like justices, when he
comes back, for him to come cringing and bowing and
making fine speeches before you; and then Master were
to say quite high and stiffish,'Well, sir, we shall see,time will show,' and were to send him out into the
kitchen to take his meat along with Roger and me, I
can't deny if I were Master Jack I'd run away again
for good, and as to me, Missis, I wouldn't stand it."
And Betty all but cried at her own tragic nature, when
the matter struck her in a new light, and she resumed,



JMRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.            417
" But what an old fool I am to think of you and
Master setting up play-acting like that. Why, Roger
himself, poor innocent, would see through it, and wait
smiling in himself to see what was to come next. And
the dog wouldn't be taken in a minute, he'd whine and
fawn on Master Jack and jump from him to you as much
as to say,'Why, don't you see it's young Master!' But
Master Jack would see through it first of all. Before you
or Master could say one of your fine improving speeches,
he'd be at your feet, lissis, —he'd be on your heart,
and you'd be crying your eyes out over him for joy."
Mother made one more faint attempt at resistance.
"But God is better than we are," she said; "and what
He sees good for us He will do, whatever it costs Him."
"The Almighty' is better than us," replied Betty
emphatically. " The father in the Bible didn't sit waiting in the house, saying,'We shall see,-time will
show.' He was waiting at the door straining his eyes
for the first sight of.the poor foolish lad, lest he should
be too ashamed to come near after all. And the minute
he saw him he ran. to meet him, and fell on his neck more
like a mother than a father, and stopped with kisses all
the fine speeches he had been making in them foreign
parts, so that the poor boy never got through with them.
And then they came back into the house together,'that
not a grudging soul there might dare to cast up a thing
at him. And he set all the men and maidens to work,
and afterwards set them all to feasting and dancing and
merry-making, as if it had been a wedding or a christening, instead of only a poor, wild lad creeping back home




418               THE DIARY OF
to try and do right again, with scarce a rag to his back,
and not a shoe to his feet. He wasn't afraid the poor
fellow would make himself too much at home. He
couldn't do enough like to make him feel he was at home
again. And the Lord, who told us all about it," concluded Betty, " He knows what the inside of the father's
house is, which is more, in my opinion, than any one on
earth can do yet awhile.  So we may as well give up
guessing and trust to what He said. For He came from
inside."
Mother admitted that the parable of the Prodigal Son
did show quite plainly the joy of God in welcoming back
the penitent sinner. " But how were we to know we
were penitent?" she said. "It was so easy to deceive
ourselves, and persuade ourselves into anything we
wished."
"Well, Missis," said Betty, " I can't say I found it so
easy. The more I wished it, the less I could believe it
was for me."
Mother conceded that this might be the case with
honest and truthful and reserved people like Betty; but
who could answer for the delusions into which sanguine
and excitable people might fall if they were told the
beginning of religion was to feel their sins were forgiven.
"Some folks always would deceive themselves," Betty
replied. "The Apostles themselves couldn't hinder that,
try as they might."
Then Mother returned to her point. How was any one
to know, assuredly, the true penitence and the true joy
from the false?




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAl             419
And to this all Betty could reply was,"Well, Missis, I can't say I think folks can know,
unless they try for themselves. But," she added, "if
we're always to be climbing up the rock out of the waves
ourselves, and never to feel we've got our feet firm upon
it, how are we to turn and have our hands free to help
the rest who are still clinging to the wreck or fighting
through the breakers?"
" And what did you say next, Mother?" I asked.
" I said nothing to Betty,"-7Mother replied. "I went
up into the little porch-closet, Kitty, and knelt down, and
prayed God to teach me."
" And then, dear Mother?" I asked.
"Why, then, Kitty, I read the Bible, and I thought a
long time, and then I prayed again. And at last I began
to see that it was a sin not to believe in the love God
has for us, and if we believe that it is as much a necessity as
a duty, to be glad."
And is not this the good news which the Methodists are bringing to thousands and tens of thousands all
over the world, a religion which promises present life
and joy and strength to all who believe it, and which
keeps the promise? A gospel not only of a past creation, finished and very good, but of a present living
Creator, creating now? Not only of a past perfect
redemption, but of a present living Redeemer; not
only of a past miraculous Pentecost, but of a present
living Holy Spirit, teaching and comforting here and
now?




420              THE DIARY OF
"Not thankful when it pleaseth me,
As if Thy blessings had spare days,
But such a heart whose pulse may be
Thy praise."
This morning I woke with those words of good Mr.
Herbert's in my heart; and before noon I felt my need
of them.- There has been a letter from Hugh. Jack's
affairs will take longer settling than we thought. And
meantime Hugh finds plenty of missionary work among
the poor blacks, so that I must try not to wish him back
before the autumn, to which time his return has been
delayed; and not to let the intervening days be merely
a kind of waste border-land between two regions of life,
but to fill them with their own work, which, no doubt, if
I ask God, He will give me.
One piece of work has come already. Toby Treffry,
when Mother and I went to visit him to-day, asked me,
as a great favour, if I would let him come to our house
for an hour now and then, and help him on a little with
his reading, which, with all his pains, he still finds to be
a very slow and not very certain mode of gaining infor-.nation or edification.
This evening he came for the first time, and with some
hesitation made known the chief reason for his coming.
He has contrived to collect a few of the idle boys of the
parish on Sunday afternoons to teach them. And the
attempt to teach others has made him feel his own deficiencies.
This accounts for the sounds Father and I heard issu



MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.         421
ing fron.. Toby's cottage as we were walking through
the fields last Sunday.
The singing was hearty enough, at all events. From
time to time the voices seemed to grow uncertain and
scanty, and to wander up and down without knowing
where they were going. But after such intervals Toby's
voice was heard again like a captain's collecting his
scattered forces after a chase, and the whole body came
in together at the close with a shout, which Father and
I concluded was the chorus.
I suggested to Betty that a little elementary instruction in singing, such as I could give, might not be useless
to Toby, if he is to be choir-master aswell as schoolmaster.
"More than that, too, Mrs. Kitty," said Betty. "Toby
is appointed local preacher in our district."
This announcement was made as Betty was taking
away the supper, and the demand on Mother's faith in
Methodist arrangements was more than it could stand.
"Toby a preacher, when he can scarcely read I" she
said.
"It's my belief, Missis," said Betty, "folks can learn
to read a deal easier than they can learn what the Almighty's learned Toby's poor soul. There be things
seen in the depths Toby's been brought through never
written in any lesson-book I ever see."
"But whatever the profit may be to others," said
Mother, "it must certainly be dangerous to Toby himself to set himself up to teach when he has still so much
to learn."




422              TIHE DIARY OF
"Well, Missis," said Betty, very respectfully but very
determinedly, " seems to me if folks weren't to teach till
they've no more to learn, they may wait till doomsday,
and beyond that, for aught that I know by. And more
than that, the folks that do set up to teach because
they've done learning be most times mortal dull teachers.
Nothing comes so home, it's my belief, as a lesson the
teacher just learned himself from the Almighty, whether
from His word or His hand. However, Toby's not set
himself up to preach, any way. Folks felt the better for
what he'd got to say, and they would make him preach,
and that's the end of it."
"A congregation who will listen is a good beginning
for any parson, certainly," said Father. "And I suppose
Toby's salary is not very high."
"The pay of them local preachers," replied Betty
drily, " is most times the wrong way as far as this world
goes. Toby often walks ten or twenty miles to his
preaching; and when it rains he's got to preach in his
wet clothes, and sit in them till they're dry; so that his
pay is like to be weary bones now and rheumatics in old
agd. But he's content enough."
But when afterwards I questioned Toby about his selfdenying labours, he coloured and stammered, very little
like a man accustomed to public speaking, and at last he
said, —
"They've only taken me on trial for a year. And as
to the pay, the times I have alone on my walks, thinking
over the Lord and His goodness, and all I've got to tell




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAi.             423
them, is pay enough for a prince, let alone the joy of
seeing the poor souls comforted and cheered up a bit,
while I talk to them, and the hope of meeting them all
and thanking the Lord together by-and-by."
These last weeks have been full of events. Uncle
Beauchamp died rather suddenly two months since.
The, shock of his death brought on a slight attack of
paralysis on Aunt Beauchamp, which has disabled her
from entering any more into society.
Cousin Evelyn is left in possession of a large fortune,
bequeathed for her sole use, on her father's death, by the
will of her paternal grandmother. She has announced
her intention of paying us a visit. Aunt Beauchamp
keeps recurring, like a sick child, to a promise she says
Mother made her of coming to nurse her if ever she
should need it. And since it is impossible for Mother
to leave home, the doctors (Evelyn writes), think that
difficult as the journey is, the most probable chance of
recovery is for her mother to come for a time to us, if
we can receive her. Mother's tender and quiet nursing
may restore her shattered nerves, or, at least, soothe
them. Betty's anticipations of this visit are not bright.
A fine London man and maid, and an old madam, who
(she has heard) paints her face (which no one ever did in
the Bible except Jezebel), are very serious apprehensions
to Betty.
Indeed, she said to-day, it was quite enough, in her
opinion, to account for all the evil signs and tokens; so
that, she admits, there is some comfort even in such an




424              THE DIARY OF
upset as this, for such sights and sounds might have
boded worse.
Betty's spirits are much relieved, now that our visitors
have come, by discovering that the " London man" turns
out to be a Methodist collier lad, promoted by Evelyn to
the dignity of groom; that my aunt's woman, Mrs. Sims,
is entirely engrossed with her mistress; that my poor
aunt herself has relinquished the rouge; and that iii a
very short time the whole party are to emigrate from
our house to the parsonage.
For Evelyn has bought the next presentation of the
living for Hugh, for which, she says, we owe her no
thanks, as she intends ruthlessly to rob us of the parsonage, and to convert it, with the exception of such
rooms as she and her mother want, into an orphan-house
for some destitute little girls she has discovered in London, for whom she believes the great hope is to take
them quite out of reach of their bad relations, into such
a new world as this will be to them.
We, she says, are to struggle on as we can in the old
house. She insists, however, on repairing or rebuilding
the fallen side of the old court, in which are situated the
rooms formerly appropriated to us. The masons and
carpenters are at work already. There is not much to
be done. The old walls are as firm as when they were
built, and the stone mullions only need to be repaired
here and there. The chief renovation is the replacing
of the broken floors and ceilings, the glazing of the old




MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.             425
windows, involving the dethronement of Betty's hens,
who from time immemorial have made their roost in the
deserted old chambers. Already, under Evelyn's eager
hastening, the work is advancing. And when Hugh
comes back he will feel as if an enchanter's wand had
been waved over the old place, so delightfully like and
yet unlike is it to its old self.
Evelyn is altogether graver and gentler and more
peaceable than I ever saw her. Her strong will seems
to find its true element in action, and no more drives
her restlessly against other people's wills, merely by
way of exercise. At the same time she seems to me
more of a queen than ever; and I delight to watch how
instinctively every one yields to her control-every one
except poor Aunt Beauchamp; and in her sick-chamber 1
love to watch Evelyn even better than anywhere else.
The paralytic stroke, bereavement, and change of circumstances, have brought a vague irritation and sense of
helpless opposition into my poor aunt's brain, very sad
to see; and this chiefly vents itself on Evelyn. She
seems to feel as if something, she knows not what, were
always preventing her doing what she wishes; and
when Evelyn appears, this tyrannical something seems to
represent itself to her-as poor Evelyn's will. At times
she blames and reproaches Evelyn as if she were a willful
child. At other times she weeps, and wrings her hands,
and entreats, as if she herself were the child and Evelyn
the harsh guardian, to be allowed to do some impossible
thing or other. And Evelyn, so strong and commanding




426               THE DIAR Y OF
elsewhere, by that sick-bed is tender and yielding, and
patient with every sick fancy. Now and then, after a
paroxysm of fretting and complaining, she is rewarded
by a few tender words of love and thanks, as a gleam of
clearer light breaks over the poor troubled brain. And
at such times it is always as to a little child Aunt Beauchamp speaks to her, calling her old tender nursery names,
long disused, at which poor Evelyn's eyes fill with tears.
The doctors say this form of the disease will probably
pass; and already Mother's presence, and firm, kind
nursing seems to have exercised a soothing influence.
The time for Hugh's arrival is come. Any day may
bring us tidings of his ship. Evelyn is hastening the
preparation of the parsonage, for the reception of her
mother and the orphans. Two rooms looking on the
garden she has fitted up with every luxury her mother
is accustomed to, China vases and images on golden
brackets, caskets of aromatic woods, soft carpets and
leopards' skins, mirrors with little China cupids peeping
round at their own reflections from the garlanded frame:
everything to make poor Aunt Beauchamp feel as much
at home as if her windows looked on Great Ormond
Street, instead of over a patch of garden sheltered with
difficulty from the storms of the Atlantic.
The rest of the house is a strange contrast. In
Evelyn's own rooms the only luxuries are books and
flowers, and a view, through an opening in the valley,
of the sea. The furniture is nearly as simple as that of
the dormitories and the scl'ool-room for the orphans, to




MRS. ZITTY TREVYLYAN.             427
whih the remaining portion of the house. is devoted.
Every one of the little white beds in these dormitories
has its own chest of drawers, which is also the toilette
table and its washing stand. These are all alike. Evelyn means to add by degrees little gifts of pictures and
books, as she learns the tastes of the little inmates. She
wishes to make a home, as far as possible, for the children; not, she says, by the assumption of names of relationship which are untrue, but by getting to know each
child individually, and by giving each some little peculiar
possessions, so as to make each feel not a little unit in a
sum, or a thing in a magazine, but a little person in a
family. Her plan is to give each of them, perhaps, a
hen, or a fruit-tree, that they may learn early the connection between taking care and having, and between
self-denial and giving. And whenever this is possible,
she intends to encourage their cherishing little memorials
of the past, that they may feel they are not taken into
the orphan house to be taken out of the order of God's
providence, but only to be removed from some of the
world's dangers and Satan's temptations.
" That is my blank sheet, Kitty," she said to me one
day. "It will be strange, in after years, to see how what
is written on it corresponds with my plans. For, though
the scheme is in my hands, the history, you know, is not."
"Cousin Kitty," she said suddenly, as we were walking home across a reach of sandy shore, "I know Mr.
Wesley thinks riches the meanest of God's, gifts, but I
do think they are a grat d gift when one is young and
free.  So few possess riehes until their wants and




428               THE DIARY OF
habits have grown up to them, so that after all they are
only enough to supply their wants,-that is not riches to
them at all. Now, with me, it is different. My tastes
are as simple as possible. I have no pleasure in splendour and no need for luxuries. God has given me riches
in my youth- and health; and, moreover," she continued
in a trembling voice, " He has given me to see something
of the great poverty and misery there are in the world.
And also He has brought me at the threshold of my life
face to face with Death. And there is nothing in the
world I should like so much, I mean really like or enjoy
so much," she repeated emphatically, "as, unentangled
with any personal interests or cares, to give myself up,
that is, all I have and am, to helping, and cheering, and
serving the sorrowful and neglected and destitute people
around me, all my life long, leading them to feel all the
time that the love and help they found in me was only a
little trickling from the great love and power of God.",As she spoke, she was looking far out over the sea to
the west, where the sky was glowing with sunset. But
the glow and the life in her eyes and on her beaming
face, seemed to make the glow on the sky lifeless in comparison. It came, I felt, from a Sun "unseen and eternal,
and its light was not that of sunset but of sunrise.
While. Evelyn and I stood together by the sea-side
that evening, I noticed, at one point, a bank of clouds
just rising slowly above the horizon.
As we walked home, the wind rose in those strange,
fitful gusts which Father says are like flying skirmishing




AXRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN             429
parties sent out to clear the way before the main forces
of a s'orm.
As the wind rose all through that evening, I began to
feel terribly anxious; and I knew they all felt as I did, because every one made such lively efforts not to let the
conversation flag. They talked about Evelyn's alterations at the parsonage, about the renovations in our old
house, about Father's old military days-about every
one except Hugh, about everything except the tempestuous wind which had now ceased to be gusty and kept
surging up the valley in great deafening waves, as regular
and almost as strong as the billows it had been urging
on in its course, and whose salt spray it kept dashing
against the windows, mingled with great plashes of rain.
Evelyn wished me good-night in an easy, careless tone,
as if it were quite an ordinary night, and no one we
cared about were on the sea; and Mother made no
attempt to come to my chamber or to invite me to hers,
as she does in any common anxiety. Only Father's voice
betrayed his feelings by its nervous abruptness, as he
came back from an exploration of the weather, and said,
as we separated for the night,"This weather is nothing' sudden. It cannot have
taken any good seaman by surprise. It has been brewing
since yesterday evening;and no doubt any one who knows
this coast is either far enough from it or safe in port."
But long afterwards, I heard Mother's closet door
close, and low voices conclude what I felt had been an
earnest parley; and, with every sense quick as it was




430              TIE DIAR1Y OF
that night, I heard Evelyn's soft step glide stealthily past
my chamber to her own.
Only Betty ventured to speak to me. She knocked at
my door, and came into my chamber from her own, while
I was still standing at the window, listening to the storm.
" Mrs. Kitty, my dear!" she said in her old tone of
authority, which carried me back to my childhood, and
made me feel submissive at once. " Mrs. Kitty, my dear
lamb, you mustn't stand staring and hearkening like
that." And she began quietly to unfasten my dress, as
when I was a little child.' There's nothing folks can't
see and hear if they hearken on nights like this, my dear,"
she continued. "I've heard the wind creusle, and moan,
and scream,. in that way; I would have sworn it was
folks in mortal trouble; and in the morning when I
came to ask, nothing had happened out of the way. So
take heart, my dear, take heart!"
How thankful I felt to Betty for the want of tact
which made her full' heart come blundering out with all
its sympathy, so that I could just lay my head on her
shoulder and cry like a child, and be comforted.
"I'm not out of heart, Betty," I sobbed; "why should I
be? His ship may not have left America yet, you know;
it may be in port quite safe,-close at hand, close at hand!"
"It may, my dear, it may," she said; "but it isn't
maybes that'll comfort you, my lamb. You must trust
the Lord."
"I do," I said. "Indeed I do. But He promises us no
security from danger; none from any danger, does He?"
"Well, Mrs. Kitty," she said, "I can't say I think He




MRS. KITTY TRE VYLYAI.           431
do. But He premises to care for us, and He tells us to
trust, and we must, my dear, we must! The Lord is sure
not to hurt us more than He can help. His promises
are great, my dear, but the Lord himself is better than
all His promises. He always means more than He says;
more and never less; because He is better than words
can say. So, Mrs. Kitty, my dear," she concluded, " I'll
leave you alone with Him. You'll find it better. For
all the greatest fights, it's my belief, have got to be fought
out alone with the Almighty. You'll find, when you
kneel down and give yourself up, heart and soul to Him,
that you don't want any more promises than He gives.
For all the words in the world end somewhere, and have
something they cannot reach. But the love of the Lord has
no end, and it flows down to the bottom of every trouble."
And when Betty had gone, I did kneel down, and I
proved what she said to be true. I proved that all possible
promises are included and absorbed by that one, " I will
never leave thee;" that all hopes of deliverance are weak
to sustain, compared with simple trust in the Deliverer.
I would not blot out the lessons of that night for twice
its pain. For, at last, I was able to put out the light
and lie down in the darkness, without shuddering, alone
with the storm; although the rush of the wind up the
valley, as gust after gust broke against the house, made
the branches of the old elms strain and groan like a
ship's timbers, and the windows rattle, and the old house
tremble to its foundations. For the tone of an enemy's
voice had passed from the tempest. I cpuld take refuge
with the Arm that wielded it, for me and mine. And




432               THE DIIARY OF
this is something to prove; for it would, doubtless, have
been easier to have been at sea by Hugh's side, than in
that quiet chamber; far easier to have been tossing helplessly, as I thought he might be, from the crest of one
wave to'the trough of another, feeling the ship stagger
at every blow of the waves, than to lie there, safe and
sheltered, listening to the winds as they surged up the
valley after lashing the sea into fury.
In the morning Betty came to me, as I was dressing,
her face white and her eyes large with fear. Toby, she
said, had just come down from the cliffs, and had said
there was a dismasted ship of British build, out of her
course and quite unmanageable, a aking as fast as she
could the fatal rocks at the entrance of his little bay.
He was going back to his cottage, with two or three of
his class, to pray for the crew; and then they were to
keep watch on the points of the coast, from which help
was most practicable, ready to throw ropes, or to render
any possible assistance.
None of us could rest in the house with such a catastrophe at hand. Father and Roger went up on. the cliff,
to join the old seamen and the fishermen already there.
Evelyn and I tried to accompany them, but we could not
stand before the wind; and it was arranged that we with
Mother and Betty, should remain in Toby's cottage, keepi;z-g up the fire, taking thither blankets and warm wraps
and all kinds of restoratives, in case any of the shipwrecked crew could be rescued.
But that moment on the cliffs had been enough to imprint the terrible sight on our hearts for ever.




MRS. KITTY TIREVYL YA.            433
Dismasted, helpless, full, we knew, of our countrymen
driven on our own shores, the-shore they had been eagerly
looking for so long, to perish!
Not one of us spoke a word as we busied ourselves in
making every possible preparation, or in the still more
terrible moments of inaction which followed, when every
possible preparation had been made.
Then Toby came for an instant to the door and shouted:
"There is hope! there is hope! Don't give over praying I She is jammed in between two rocks. If she can
hold together till the ebb, there is hope!
A sob of relief broke from us all; and we knelt down
together. But no one would utter a word.
Soon Toby came again.
"They are making signals!" he said. " We have
made signals to them to wait. But either they don't
make us out, or she won't hold together. One of them
is tying a rope round him to throw himself into the sea.
We can see him from the beach. We could make him
hear if it was n't for the roar of the wind and the sea."
Then we could remain in the cottage no longer. Evelyn and I went back with Toby to the point on the beach
nearest the wreck.
"He hopes to reach us, and get the rest in by the rope,"
said Toby. "But he'll never do it. The sea is too
wild."
And then, in a low tone," He must know the coast. He is climbing the slippery rock at the only point it can be climbed, where
Master Hugh and I used to hunt for gulls' nests."




434              THE DIARY OF
He stopped. His eye met mine.
"Oh, Mrs. Kitty, take heart, take heart " he said.
" Master Hugh knows what he's about. And the Lord'11
never let him be lost."
The form we were watching plunged from the rock
and disappeared beneath the waves. There was a shout
among the fishermen. Again another; he had re-appeared above the breakers. Then again a terrible breathless silence.
What happened next I did not see. A mist came
before my eyes, blotting out sound and sight.
And the next thing of which I was conscious was
waking up in Toby's cottage with my head on Mother's
bosom, and seeing some one stretched on Toby's little
bed beside the fire, but not too close, while Toby and
Betty, on each side, were chafing the hands and feet,
and the face was motionless and pale as death.
But slowly, almost before I was fully conscious, his
breast heaved slightly: the eyes feebly opened and met
mine. And the next instant I was kneeling beside Hugh.
They had been chafing and rubbing, and trying every
means of restoration for an hour; and it was only just
before I recovered consciousness, that the first faint gasp,
the first pale flush of colour gave any sign of returning
life.
But as I knelt there, beside him, his eyes opened again
and rested with such rest on mine, and he rather breathed
than said, so faint was his voice,"Are the rest saved?"
And Toby answered,



MRS. KITTY TREVYLYANl             435
"They're all saved, all. The Lord bless you, Master
Hugh. The waves which dashed you, a drowned man,
as we thought, on the beach, did not break the rope
which bound you to the wreck. Three of the boldest
clung to that and were saved at once, and all the rest
when the tide went out."
Then Hugh was satisfied, and asked no more questions,
but kept firm hold of my hand and closed his eyes. His
lips moved, tears pressed slowly out from under his
closed-eyelids, and an expression of unutterable peace
settled on his face.
Before night we were all kneeling there, beside him,
the ship-wrecked crew around the door, while in feeble,
but distinct tones, he was thanking God whose mercies
are "new every morning," whose " mercy endureth for
ever."
That is the way in which God has answered a thou
sand prayers at once.
Life was given back to the perishing by Toby's fire
side, and through his hands. The wrecker's house of
death became a threshold of life. The den of thieves
became a house of prayer.
And Hugh is given back to me. That was the first
service in which Iugh led the prayers and praises of
his flock. A "prosperous journey" had indeed been
given him (such as was given to St. Paul of old), beyond
all we could have dared to ask.
He had reached his native shores in a nobler triumph
than if he had been convoyed by all the King's fleet, and
greeted by a royal salute; cast on the beach a ship



436                 THE DIARY.
wreck jd man, all but dying for those he had plunged
into the waves to rescue.
The Amens of his first thanksgiving service had been
sobbed from the lips of those whose lives he had risked
his own to save.
We accept it as a token.
When " the storm of life is past;" when we wake to
our first thanksgiving-service on the other shore, will
there (oh will there not?) be such a company of rescued
men and women around us then? rescued from. wreck
more fatal, pouring out their praises, not, indeed, to us,
but to Him who loved us all and redeemed us all to God
by His blood; not at the risk of His life only, but, by
giving it up, redeemed us not from hell to heaven only,
but from sin to God.
For the storms never cease on earth. And even when
Mr. Whitefield, and the Wesleys, and John Nelson, and
Silas Jold, have passed from this world, with all the
noble men and women who work with them, rescuing
wrecked souls from destruction, and chaffing fainting
hearts into life, Hugh says the storms will still continue, and the wrecks. For till heaven and earth shall
pass away, the work of rescuing the lost will have to
begin again, generation by generation, and day by day.
But there is no fear, Hugh is sure, but that with the
storms God will send the deliverers; the new workmen
for the old work of rescue from the old perils, wakening
the new song of redemption, fresh as at first, in every
heart that learns it fresh from heaven.
THE END.