“Because I wish you to take them a little more seriously,” replied Captain Arrows. “You have hitherto regarded unreasonable fear as an innocent weakness, perhaps as something allied with feminine grace, and not as a foe to be resisted and conquered. I see that fear is at this time throwing a shadow over your path; that you would be happier if you had the power wholly to cast it aside.”
“I have not the power,” said Emmie. The words had scarcely escaped her lips when she wished them unspoken, for she was ashamed thus to plead guilty to a feeling of superstitious alarm.
“Let us then trace the parentage of unreasonable fear,” said Captain Arrows. “I use the adjective advisedly. There are cases where the nerves are so shattered by illness, or enfeebled by age, that fears come on the mind, as fits on the body, not as a fault but as a heavy affliction. There are also times of extreme and awful danger, such as that of the Indian Mutiny, when faith must indeed have had a dread struggle with fear; though even then, in the hearts of tender women, faith won the victory still. But I am speaking of that fear which common sense would condemn. Such fear is, must be, the offspring of mistrust, and its effects show it to be a tempter and an enemy of the soul.”
“What effects do you mean?” said Emmie.
“These three at least,” answered the captain. “Unreasonable fear hinders usefulness, destroys peace, and prevents our glorifying God.”
“I do not quite see how it should do so,” murmured Emmie.
“It hinders usefulness,” said her uncle; “like indolence, fear is ever seeing ‘a lion in the street.’ Does not fear hang like a clog on the spirit, making ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would,’ even when duty to God and mercy to man is in question?”
Arrows paused as if for a reply. Emmie gave none; her eyes were gazing out of the carriage window on the smoky veil which hung over the great city which they were approaching; she knew that she dared not do, what thousands of her sex are doing, go as a child of light to carry light into the abodes of darkness. Emmie had owned in her uncle’s presence that she was far too timid to visit the poor.
“Then fear destroys peace,” continued the captain, “and I believe that it does so to a greater extent than does any other passion which troubles the soul, remorse only excepted. If we literally and fully obeyed the command so often repeated in Scripture, to hope and to be not afraid, a mountain of misery would be removed at once and cast into the sea. If you do not mind a personal application of the subject, would you, my dear child, feel uneasy at going to a house which is called haunted, if you realized that God fills all space, and that you are everywhere under His loving protection?”
Emmie still continued silent, looking out of the carriage window. Her feelings were those of deep mortification. That she, earnestly pious as she was, should virtually be accused of want of faith, that her deficiency in this first requisite of religion should have been so glaring as to have attracted the notice of a partial relative, was a trial the more painful from being totally unexpected.
“Bunyan represents Mistrust, the parent of unreasonable fear, as a robber,” pursued the captain, referring again to that allegory which gives so wondrously true a picture of man’s spiritual state. “We first meet Mistrust in company with Timorous, and their object is to discourage, to frighten, to make Christian start back from the perils which would meet him if he pursued the path of duty; when we next hear of Mistrust, he is in company with Guilt, and together they rob Little-faith of his treasure.”
“Yes, mistrust does rob us of our peace,” said Emmie with a sigh.
“And now, let me touch on my third point, even at the risk of giving some pain,” said the captain. “Mistrust not only hinders usefulness, and mars peace, but prevents our glorifying our Maker as we might otherwise do. Is not the inconsistency of His children dishonouring to God? And is it not inconsistent to avow our belief that our Heavenly Father loves us – cares for us – is about our path and our bed, and yet to be as full of unreasonable terrors as if, like the fool, we said ‘there is no God’? The Christian knows that Christ hath ‘abolished death;’ he knows that to depart from earth is to enter into rest; that light, and life, and glory await the redeemed of the Lord. Is it not inconsistent, I repeat, in one who believes all this, to shrink with unconcealed terror from the barest possibility that the time for his going home may be hastened, even a little? The natural effect of strong faith would be to make the righteous ‘bold as a lion.’”
“Uncle, you judge me very hardly,” murmured Emmie, ready to burst into tears.
“I do not judge you, dear child; I only warn you not to cherish, as an inmate, that enemy whom you have hitherto regarded but as a harmless infirmity. Bring him before the bar of reason, bind him with the strong cords of prayer. I have spoken thus frankly to you on this subject, because I foresee that on your conquest of mistrust, your victory over unreasonable fears, must depend much of your peace, happiness, and usefulness also, in the new home to which you are going. A realizing faith in God’s presence, a simple trust in His love, these are the most powerful antidotes against superstitious and all other ill-grounded fears. The light that dispels shadows is the words, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.”
Captain Arrows had thus given to his sister’s children his warning against what, from close observation of their characters, he deemed to be the besetting sin of each, – pride, selfishness, and mistrust. What had been the effect of his words? The monitor had given offence, he had given pain, and in one case, at least, his warning had been as the dropping into a brook of a pebble, that scarcely causes even a ripple. There are few who value gratuitous counsel; the many prefer to buy experience, though it should prove to be at the price of future pain and regret. We are seldom thankful to him who would explore for us the heart’s haunted chamber, even should we not possess the candour and moral courage to search its depths for ourselves.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE JOURNEY
On the following day Emmie, escorted by Vibert and attended by Susan, started for her new home. Almost at the last moment Mr. Trevor found that important business would, for another day, delay his own departure; but all arrangements for the general move having been made, he would not defer it, preferring for the single night to sleep at a hotel in London.
The bustle of departure took from its pain; Emmie left her dear old home without a tear, though not without a sigh of regret. Vibert was in high spirits, for novelty has its charm, especially to a temperament such as his. Mr. Trevor had given to each of his sons a fishing-rod and a gun; and Vibert was already, in imagination, a first-rate angler and sportsman. It would have been difficult to have been dull in Vibert’s company during the journey. Sporting anecdotes, stories of adventures encountered by others, and anticipations of future ones of his own, interspersed with many a jest, amused not only Vibert’s sister, but their fellow-travellers in the same railway-carriage. The youth had none of his elder brother’s reserve, and took pleasure in attracting the notice of strangers, having a pleasant consciousness that in his case notice was likely to imply admiration also.
“That handsome lad seems to look on life as one long holiday, to be passed under unclouded sunshine,” thought a withered old gentleman, who looked as if all his days had been spent in a fog. “Poor boy! poor boy! he will soon be roused, by stern experience, from the pleasant dream in which he indulges now!”
About half-an-hour before sunset, the train in which the Trevors were making their journey approached the station of S – , the one at which they were to alight.
“Your new pony-chaise is to meet us, Emmie, so papa arranged,” observed Vibert; “but it must be a commodious chaise if it is to accommodate four persons, and all our lots of luggage. There are three boxes and a carpet-bag of mine in the van, besides I know not how many of yours. Then look here,” – Vibert glanced at the numerous et ceteras which showed that the young travellers had understood how to make themselves comfortable; “here’s a shawl, and a rug, and foot-warmer, a basket, a bag, three umbrellas, and a parasol, my hat-box, and a fishing-rod besides! Are all to be stowed away in the chaise? If so, it will need nice packing.”
“Bruce