"
"What! you think that Omnipotence, in the inaccessible mystery of Heaven,
keeps the muster-roll of earth open before Him, and reckons each little
life as it drops off the list? That is hardly my notion of Divinity. I
see the Almighty rather as the Roman poet saw Him--an inexorable Father,
hurling the thunderbolt our folly has deserved from His red right hand, yet
merciful to stay that hand when we have taken our punishment meekly. That,
Angela, is the nearest my mind can reach to the idea of a personal God. But
do not bend those pencilled brows with such a sad perplexity. You know,
doubtless, that I come of a Catholic family, and was bred in the old faith.
Alas! I have conformed ill to Church discipline. I am no theologian, nor
quite an infidel, and should be as much at sea in an argument with Hobbes
as with Bossuet. Trouble not thy gentle spirit for my sins of thought or
deed. Your tender care has given me time to repent all my errors. You
were going to tell my lordship something, when I chid you for excess of
ceremony--"
"Nay, sir--brother, I had but to say that this wicked Court, of which my
father and you have spoken so ill, can scarcely fail to be turned from its
sins by so terrible a visitation.
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