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 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. 
 KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 A STORY OF 
 
 Wm Wcmza of SQhitctfclb aitb the E&cslcus. 
 
 By the Author of 
 
 ut 
 
 "CHRONICLES OF THE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY," 
 
 JOkaxtbaxt'. 
 
 T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK. 
 
 1886. 
 
 All Risrhls Rttrrvrd. 1

 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 I. 
 
 Wednesday, May the First, 1745. 
 OTHER always said that on the day I became six- 
 teen 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 al- 
 ways 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 to rock us children to 
 sleep, and a table covered with a white cloth, with five books 
 on it — the Bible, Mr. Herbert's Poems, Bishop Taylor's " Holy 
 Living and Dying," Thomas a Kempis on the " Imitation of 
 Christ," and the Diary. 
 
 The four printed books I was allowed to read, but (except 
 the Bible) they used in my childish days to seem to me very 
 gloomy and grave, and not at all such as to account for that 
 infectious peacefulness in Mother's face and voice.
 
 6 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 bind- 
 ing 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 ! 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 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 mother-creature making soft contented cooings 
 and purrings over its young; and far away in the offing, beyond 
 Um' long shadow of the cliffs, the just risen sun was kissing the 
 lit tic 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 (!<>'! like a father was smiling on us all. 
 
 And is it not true in some Bense? Is not every sunrise like
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 7 
 
 a fresh creation 1 and every morning like the birth of a new 
 life 1 ? and every night like a hidden fountain of youth, in which 
 all the creatures bathe in silence, and come forth again new 
 born 1 
 
 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 in-doors, that since there are only 
 Betty and Roger, and we must help in some way, she was per- 
 suaded to let me do what I «njoy. 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 im- 
 possible for me to think it a sacrifice for any one to have 
 married Mother. 
 
 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 ; " and if I was as lazy as the brute,
 
 8 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 have 
 been ; indeed, I am not sure he did not regard the gift as a kind 
 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 sick 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 help- 
 less 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 wind- 
 ing staircase 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 Trefiry.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 9 
 
 I therefore set down my pails in the dairy, gave them in 
 charge to Betty, cut a large slice off 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 had 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, beautiful Mother ! as young in heart as ever. But 
 while I looked up in her dear thin face, I could not speak ; the 
 words were choked in my throat, and I could only look down 
 again and lay my cheek on her hand. 
 
 " Do not natter 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 empti- 
 ness of thine 1 Mine is worth more to me than when it was 
 clean and bright as thine."
 
 10 DIARY OF AIRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 it for himself, and learn it 
 there. T cannot teach 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 Halle- 
 lujahs and the Aniens 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
 
 DIAR Y OF MRS. KITT Y TRE V YL YAN. 1 1 
 
 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 the 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 1 
 
 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 resolutions broken, 
 its irrevocable opportunities lost, its sins unrepented, its bless- 
 ings uncounted 1 ? It is a discovery I have just 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 EACn DAY RELIGIOUSLY. 
 
 " 1. Suppose every day to be a day of business ; for your 
 whole life is a race and a battle, a merchandise 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 blessing 
 into a dream. 
 
 II 3. Never let any one think it an excuse to lie in bed, be-
 
 12 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 cause 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. 
 
 " 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 de- 
 voutly bow your head and worship the Holy Trinity — the 
 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 facul- 
 ties 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 unliand- 
 someness 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 your 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREYYLYAN. 13 
 
 your Saviour; and so in all the 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 not be 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. 
 
 "(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.
 
 14 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 " (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 encourage- 
 ments to virtue ; some spiritual strength and advantage, or else 
 some act of prayer to God, or glorification of Him. 
 
 " (5.) I advise that 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 agree- 
 ing to 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 clay, 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 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. 
 
 5f» TT? tK 1* T^ 
 
 " 22. Towards the declining of the day, be sure to retire to 
 your private devotions. Read, meditate, and pray. 
 
 " 23. Bead 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 speak- 
 ing 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.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREYYLYAN. 15 
 
 If nothing extraordinary hath happened, your conscience is the 
 sooner examined ; but if you have had a difference or disagree- 
 ing 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. 
 
 " 25. As you are going to bed, as often as you can conveni- 
 ently, meditate of death, and the preparations to your grave. 
 When you lie down, close your eyes with a short prayer ; com- 
 mit 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
 
 16 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 brother Jack, 
 and Hugh Spencer ; and if I stayed awake till cock-crowing, 
 how could I thank God enough for that 1 
 
 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 white-thorn 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 love 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, O our Saviour, the love 
 of Thy poverty and Thy cross." 
 
 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 17 
 
 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 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 she is seldom 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 devo- 
 tions ; 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, with such sights 
 and scents and sounds to be had from my casement. 
 
 But this inward debate occupied some time, 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 
 
 9
 
 18 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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. When I came to 
 the shelf on which I had laid it, it was gone. On my question- 
 ing 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 
 window-sill 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.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 19 
 
 And Father smiled, and asked me if my Diary was to be like 
 that of the citizen in the " Spectator." Monday — 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. 
 
 How 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," than to say with quiet shame, from one's in- 
 most 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. Exagger- 
 ated 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 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 1 What was it that Betty touched to the quick in assert- 
 ing her right over me 1 I suppose it was my pride. 
 
 What made me so angry with JacL ? He certainly had no
 
 20 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 1 Can it be avarice ? 
 
 And then, what made me impatient with Mother 1 I thought 
 she did not justly stand up for my rights. 
 
 My dignity ! My things ! My rights ! How mean and sel- 
 fish 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. 
 
 This 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 1 " said she, letting 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 21 
 
 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 do 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 pei'plex 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 accomplish as much by lightly mowing the 
 blossoms. For the blossoms 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, give 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
 
 22 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 themselves, — looking over the great and wide sea, with its count- 
 less emerald and purple waves, to which we see no end, — look- 
 ing up to the great sunny sky to which there is no end ; — and 
 through it all listening to a Human Yoice 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 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 23 
 
 so ungenerous as not to share anything with us 1 " 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 1 
 
 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 1 " But what is at the bottom of thoughtlessness 
 which pains those dearest to us 1 
 
 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. 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 bet- 
 ter play-room than the dear old court behind the house? with the 
 felled trunks of 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 ^Esop's Fables, to watch
 
 24 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 the stately ways of the cocks, and the system of education pur- 
 sued 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 farmyard 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, which the sea fills 
 at every tide, sometimes creeping on in quiet ripples, but oftener 
 leaping up in great white waves, far taller than Ave, and thun- 
 dering 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. He 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 he 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 25 
 
 about as he did at other times, although I had no dislike 
 
 to it. 
 
 I suppose it 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 eyes — grave 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 
 miners' 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 think- 
 ing of it." 
 
 " Why 1 ?" I said. " Betty says they are not poor." 
 
 " No, but they are immortal !" 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.
 
 26 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 " Only at weddings or funerals," he said ; " and if they came, 
 what would the beautiful words be to them, untaught and un- 
 trained as they are, but so much music 1 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 under- 
 stand, 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 pronounce — that, 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 think- 
 ing that if St. John Chrysostom, or, far better, St. Paul himself, 
 had been here, they would have found 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 27 
 
 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 chil- 
 dren, 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 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 1 ? I sometimes think," he continued, "it would be a good 
 rule if every clergyman were obliged to begin by being some- 
 thing 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 under- 
 stand 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
 
 28 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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." 
 
 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 1 ?" I asked. 
 
 " Bless your heart !" said Betty, " do you think I would make 
 so bold as to understand our parson 1 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 par- 
 tition of the room in which the parson was, roaring out, " Bring 
 out the Canorum 1 Where is the Canorum ?" Kitty, the maid 
 (through whom Betty heard of it), exclaimed, " Oh, sir, what 
 must we do?" He replied, "We must pray." Then she ad- 
 vised 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 hun»
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 29 
 
 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, bare-headed, that they might 
 all see his face, and said, " Here I am. Which of you has any- 
 thing to say to me 1 To which of you have I done any wrong 1 
 To you 1 — or you ? — or you 1 " 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, " Neigh- 
 bours, countrymen! do you desire to hear me speak?" The 
 mob stood hesitating and abashed, and several of them cried 
 vehemently, "Yes, yes; he shall speak! — 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 go to hear him ; and the parsons 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 con- 
 cert," 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.
 
 30 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 " 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 bewil- 
 dered tone. 
 
 " It is the words they say," 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, Missis," 
 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 clergy- 
 men of the Church of England. This new 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,
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 31 
 
 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. 
 
 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 Wes- 
 ley, and that he is a real clergyman, and fellow of a college at 
 Oxford.
 
 II. 
 
 0-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 'twould 
 be a pity to let slip this opportunity, it was time I 
 should be learning something of the world; and Aunt Beau- 
 champ, 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 a 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. 'Twere 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 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 niidii beyond the sun, into God's world of 
 count lrss stars. 
 
 1 do aol Bee how our world can be wider than just so far 
 along the path God makes for us as He clears the way for us
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 33 
 
 to see. And I do not see that it need be "wider than homo 
 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. 
 
 My box is packed, all but the corner into which I must 
 squeeze my Diary, if it were only for the pi'ecious 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 Mother 
 and sit 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 mo 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, heart to 
 heart, on and on, always, always, to the point where our hands 
 must be unclasped. 
 
 3
 
 •34 -DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 Partings are terrible because they are the foreshadowing 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 last — and 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, 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 1 
 
 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 hi ours when we say it, and so be wrapped 
 all round with love. 
 
 Hackney, Man 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.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 35 
 
 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 aud surely nearer home. 
 
 Mother stood like a white statue at the door when I rode 
 away on the pillion behind Father ; Jack laughed 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 a refuge against 
 them; and the only refuge I could find was to fly from all the 
 uncertainty straight to Him with whom all is light 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 par- 
 ticular 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. 
 
 When we landed at Bristol it was in a small degree like 
 leaving home again. The little child clung round me so lov-
 
 36 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 ingly, 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 disguised oaths, and interrupts not me only, but his 
 mother or Cousin Evelyn, and is as free 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 them- 
 selves, 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 
 buried among her furs and perfumes, and seemed every now 
 and then on the point of going into hysterics when the horses
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 37 
 
 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 fright- 
 ened. 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 1 could 
 hear repressed sobs from some, both 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 in familiar conver- 
 sation, 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.
 
 38 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 tool" said Uncle Beauchamp. " Confound 
 the fellows, they are like locusts. The land is full of them ; 
 but if ever they set their feet near Beauchamp Manor, I shall 
 know how to give them their deserts ! " 
 
 " 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 Beau- 
 champ. " 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 Metho- 
 dists, 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 Beauchani]) ; 
 — "more contemptible even than T thought."
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 39 
 
 " Dandy or not," said Harry combatively, " I have heard lie 
 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 un- 
 washed 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 London 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 houses higher, 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 bewilder- 
 ing, 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, 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 de- 
 feated, 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.
 
 40 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 What a blessing it is that the things we are dim and doubt- 
 ful about are only the things half-way it]), 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, everything will be clear to us, as it is to Him. 
 
 And meantime Thou thyself, O 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. White- 
 field — 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. 
 
 Hackney, near London. 
 
 The place Aunt and Uncle Henderson live in is called Hack- 
 ney. 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 lead 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, over- 
 flowing from heaven as from a fountain over-full, are of course 
 hers as 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 Lon-
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 41 
 
 don seem to have, as if the rest of the world were a kind of 
 obscure outskirts of this great town. 
 
 Aunt Beauckarnp 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 I had seen nothing 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." 
 
 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 bed- 
 room looks over it across a long reach of marshy ground to a 
 range of blue hills which look wavy like our moors. I feel sure 
 there must be furse 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 1 ?" 
 
 " 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
 
 42 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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." 
 
 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 1 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 gi'eat 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 many. 
 
 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.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 43 
 
 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 as 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 book-shelves 
 in the best parlour, — Baxter and Howe and Owen, and a num- 
 ber 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 Hender- 
 son 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 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 delight- 
 ful, 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.
 
 44 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 Uncle Henderson, however, does not seem at all pleased with 
 Mother's good books. When he asked me one clay 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 not a Pelagian, 
 besides his natural shortcomings 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 beginning. 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 understand- 
 ing, 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 
 :u nl done great things a long time ago. 
 
 But I do not think the people generally like it much more 
 than T do. They seem so very glad to go. They rise the
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 45 
 
 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 not have any superstitious reverence for places. 
 
 The sermons are very long. Last Sunday there were five-and- 
 twonty 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, how- 
 ever, 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 Beaucbamp 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. And 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 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. —
 
 40 , DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 "It is John Wesley." 
 
 His manner was very calm, not impassioned like Mr. White- 
 field's ; but the people seemed quite as much moved. 
 
 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 Hender- 
 son 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, — 
 
 " 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 47 
 
 are only the found 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 be- 
 side 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 bus 
 band was killed when she and he were quite young, which i, 
 perhaps one reason why her heart seems to have kept so fresh 
 and young. He was killed by King James's soldiers who wei • 
 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 under- 
 stand each other." 
 
 " My poor bairn, what thought have you then of the holi- 
 ness of the saints? It is the pride, lassie, that separates us 
 from one another, not the goodness. I know well the greatest
 
 48 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 un- 
 speakable charm to me. Her voice has a tender cadence in it 
 I never heard in any English voice. It touches me like an 
 echo of some voice dear and familiar long ago. 
 
 She has beautiful histories to tell me of good people. She 
 has known so many. 
 
 Best of all I like to hear her 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 learn- 
 ing 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 preach- 
 ing, 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," stretch- 
 ing 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 49 
 
 an English minister, calling himself Archbishop of Glasgow in 
 the worst days of the 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 dryly, 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 
 neighbours' names 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 
 Presbyterianism had reduced Scotland. 
 
 Dead Puritanism seems to me a very terrible thing. There 
 is just the death, without the balms or the spices, or the beau- 
 tiful 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 in Aunt Jeanie ! Alike in 
 being life, and yet how delightfully unlike in each ' 
 
 4
 
 50 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 V 
 
 " 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 Sun- 
 day, and something different, something better and more than 
 any other day, and the corn-fields never seemed to look so 
 golden, or the sea so bright, as when I walked to church with 
 Mother's hand in mine. And coming 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 
 Kitty," he added abruptly, looking earnestly in my face, " are 
 yon converted?" 
 
 The question startled me very much, and I did not know 
 what answer to give.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 51 
 
 " 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 
 converted. No one is." 
 
 " But then there is the Cross, Tom," I said. " There is the 
 Cross ! 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 any- 
 thing 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 perplexi- 
 ties 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 ie as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom 
 
 tieaven." 
 
 He said it to the disciples when they were debating who 
 should be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 To the poor wandering multitudes he said not, " Be con- 
 verted," but " Come unto Me." 
 
 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 1 
 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 truthful- 
 ness 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, O gracious Savioui', 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 !" 
 
 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, and Aunt was taking a dish of tea with a friend), 
 I said, " Cousin Tom, I have been thinking of what you said, 
 and you must not say God does not love you because you are
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 53 
 
 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 converts me 1 " 
 
 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 call- 
 ing 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 1 " 
 
 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 toill not come back to our Saviour." 
 
 "And you are contradicting St. Paul, Cousin Kitty," he 
 said. 
 
 " How I wish you could hear Mr. Whitefield or Mr. Wesley," 
 I said, for I 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
 
 54 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 / 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 less harm, I am sure, than sitting at home and hearing 
 Aunt Beauchamp and Cousin Harry and nine-tenths of our 
 acquaintances 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 55 
 
 need for you to be either Lad or a hypocrite. You can he good, 
 and you must try." 
 
 " Do you mean I must he 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 I went on, — 
 
 " 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 a friend's hand stretched out to grasp ours. 
 And then such a Friend ! we have done Him so much wrong, 
 and He is so ready to forgive all ; and such a Hand ! 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 1 " 
 
 Just then Uncle Henderson came in, and I went to join 
 Aunt Henderson in the best parlour.
 
 56 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 between 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 in- 
 structive 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 infirmi- 
 ties 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 wis- 
 dom." 
 
 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 ill- written and mis-spelt 
 sentences set before us to teach us grammar. 
 
 But I always thought we learned more by looking at the 
 M>eZ/-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. 
 
 And it must matter just as much how the other copies are 
 written ; at all events, to the people who write them. I sup- 
 pose no one is sent into the world exactly to be a kind of ex- 
 ample of failure, even to make Aunt Henderson quite perfect
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 57 
 
 by the contrast. But only to think of Aunt Henderson calling 
 Mother a Papist ! 
 
 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. He 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 awake those 
 whose hearts are slumbering. 
 
 The good old man spoke so tenderly I thought he must have 
 felt it all for 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, five-and-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 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 a family circle without the cares. 
 
 It seems to me such a beautiful use to make of riches. Tho 
 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
 
 58 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 he enjoyed, will have something like 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 servant. 
 
 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 pcur contempt on all my pride. 
 
 " 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 
 helps 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.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 59 
 
 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 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 to hear Mr. "Wesley, 
 and to go often to Aunt 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 kneel and look up, and adore?
 
 III. 
 
 Great Orrnond 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 oidy 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 profit- 
 able 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 hackney coach, 
 he said abruptly, " Cousin Kitty, forgive me if I spoke roughly 
 to you ; you have been very good to me ; and some day per- 
 haps 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 61 
 
 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 fountains 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 1 1 " 
 
 So we cried together a little while, and then she knelt down 
 with me for the first time by her bed-side, 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 — a child-like, depen- 
 dent 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
 
 62 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 Hen- 
 derson's, as if it were 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 count- 
 less small curls ; while a shapeless white poodle was curled up 
 in her lap ; and a black page was standing in the background, 
 feeding a chattering parrot. 
 
 It startled me very much ; but Aunt Beauchamp, after sur- 
 veying 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 eye-glass, 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 
 seemed to me rather old, rose, and with an elaborate bow 
 offered me a chair, and hoped it would be long before I with- 
 drew 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, tapped 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
 
 DIARY OF MBS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 63 
 
 she must be five-ancl-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 Beauchamp let her maid put those 
 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 a maid was smoothing out 
 her beautiful long hair. 
 
 Her greeting was not very cordial ; it was kind, but her largo 
 penetrating eyes kept investigating me as they had on our jour- 
 ney 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 1 " 
 
 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.
 
 64 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 " 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 her- 
 self 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 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 was nothing to tell. Every 
 one and everything at home are naturally so bound up with my
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN 65 
 
 very 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 tiling 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." 
 
 " 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 goina; 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 \ resided 
 over the Church. In town it is different, The archdeacon 
 never preaches half an hour, and that in the softest voice and 
 
 5
 
 66 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 in the most elegant language — very little duller than the dullest 
 papers of the Spectator or the Tatler. 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 imper- 
 fectly concealed contempt which curled my cousin's lips as she 
 unfolded one carefully packed article after another. My best 
 Sunday hat 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 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 seemed 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 are tired,
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 67 
 
 can have no idea of the little loving sacrifices, the tender plan- 
 nings, the self-denials, the willing toils, the tearful pleasures, 
 that are interwoven into the household possessions of the poor. 
 To Evelyn my wardrobe was a had 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 not know, Cousin Kitty, that three years old is worse 
 than three centuries 1 It is all the difference between antiquated 
 and antique. You would look a great deal more modern in a 
 ruff and farthingale 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 Truro 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, — 
 
 " 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
 
 68 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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. While 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 to church, or anywhere else," 
 she replied, — " 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 the boxes nearest 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 strange little creature," said Evelyn, "you bring right 
 and wrong into everything. You must not think of the actors 
 as men and women, but merely as machines." 
 
 M 
 
 At church it seemed to me very much the same. Aunt 
 Beauchamp encountered many of bier little court, and distributed 
 her nods and smiles and her deprecatory glances, as at the play.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 69 
 
 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-bottles, 
 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. After- 
 wards 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 considerable amusement, and I 
 felt ashamed of my own voice, and then felt ashamed of being 
 ashamed. 
 
 The sermon was on the impropriety of being righteous over 
 much ; and every one said, as they met and exchanged greet- 
 ings in the porch that it was a most elegant and able discourse ; 
 it was a pity some of those 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
 
 70 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYA.X 
 
 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 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 build- 
 ings in the Greek and Roman style, or by that classic adapta- 
 tion of both which is so elaborately developed in the ornamental 
 pulpit and sounding-board of the church we attended. 
 
 And then Aunt Beauchamp says some of the wood-work 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 fashions 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 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 endless 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 evening a number of beautifully dressed 
 people, paying elaborate compliments to their present acquaint- 
 ances, or elaborately dissecting the characters of their absent
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 71 
 
 acquaintances— the only groups really in earnest being appar- 
 ently 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 moment- 
 ous 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 unfor- 
 gotten history of the past, whose to-morrow may take us up 
 to God ourselves. We are to live by the day, not as butter- 
 flies, 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 brill- 
 iant 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 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 re- 
 jected, 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 I" —
 
 72 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 " 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 Hender- 
 son's chapel at Hackney." 
 
 " Your taste is original, at all events," she replied dryly. 
 
 "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 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 1 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 1 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 hun- 
 dred answers, for I did not mean to judge any one unkindly. 
 I only spoke of my own feelings. But Evelyn has retired into 
 her shell, and evades all attempts to resume the subject. 
 
 This morning at breakfast Cousin Harry (of whom we see
 
 DIARY OF MBS. KITTY TBEVYLYAN. 73 
 
 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 end- 
 ing 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." 
 
 " 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 1 " I asked. 
 
 " Not every day," she replied dryly. " 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 watch- 
 ing 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 Yauxhall. 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
 
 74 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAX. 
 
 graceful steps, and the performers fall into depths one shudders 
 to think 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 com- 
 pared 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 fragrant 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; 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 perplex- 
 ing myself what I ought to do. She laughed at my distress, 
 and told me she could show me a drawer full of such com- 
 positions.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYIYAX 75 
 
 "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 save him the answer he wishes." 
 
 O 
 
 "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, looking 
 nearly as much shocked as I had felt at her calling the church 
 as good as the play. " Pray about a love-letter, Cousin Kitty ! 
 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 riidit and 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 V 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 with any one who did 
 since my old nurse died." 
 
 "~S<'Yt-v met with any religious person ! " I said.
 
 76 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 "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 sermons,' 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 you." 
 
 " Oh, Cousin Evelyn," I said, " you must not judge people 
 so severely. How can we know what is really in other people's 
 hearts 1 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 1 " 
 
 "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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 77 
 
 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 not say a word to you. 
 Cut 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 re- 
 ligious 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 wish- 
 ing 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, censorious- 
 ness, idleness, hastiness, I come to sins, pride, selfishness. It 
 is not the things only that are wrong, it is / that am wrong, — 
 I myself, — and what can alter me 1 I may change my words 
 or my actions, but who is to change me 1 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" 
 
 She caught at the words "as little children," She said,
 
 78 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 " Cousin Kitty, that is just the thing I should like, — that would 
 be like waking up quite new. But how can that be 1 " 
 
 "It seems to me," I 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 in- 
 crease. 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 best — have 
 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 dis- 
 tress ; it always restores and cheers me — and yet she is not 
 comforted. 
 
 It seems 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,
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 79 
 
 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 Foundry 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, melt- 
 ing 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. White- 
 field 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 Huntingdon's 
 house. She strongly urged my aunt and cousin to go, saying, 
 by way of inducement, that 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 common- 
 place fanatic, I assure you, Miss Beauchamp. 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 Boling- 
 broke were considered good judges of a sermon," said Evelyn 
 dryly. 
 
 "Of the doctrine — well, that is another thing," said the re- 
 ligious 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 pro-
 
 80 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 nunciation 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. 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 con- 
 gregation 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.' '
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 81 
 
 We have heard Mr. Whitefield. 
 
 And what can I remember 1 ? 
 
 Just a man striving with his whole heart and soul to 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 overwhelm- 
 ing torrent 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 6
 
 82 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 And then, after a pause, she added, in rather a self-contra- 
 dictory 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 nothing 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 clays 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 ; and I am sure Dr. Humden would think I had been 
 out of my senses." 
 
 And soothed with so many restoratives, ecclesiastical, social, 
 and medical, Aunt Beau champ relapsed into her usual state of 
 languor and self-contentment. 
 
 But Evelyn said nothing. Only when I ventured some houi's 
 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYA IV. 83 
 
 beaming with a soft, childlike, 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 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, andybr 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 all my past life 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 
 have 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 any 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
 
 84 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 draught. Since then, indeed, we have been much away from 
 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 
 do a thing to please her in return ! 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 forgiving love, and with the hope of 
 the days to come. But only think what it would havt, 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. Yet, 
 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 feel- 
 ings," I said. " There are moments when they will come out. 
 And there is so much in the Bible to speak 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 ! Yet there are sacred times 
 when we must speak of those we love." 
 
 Aunt Beau champ is rather puzzled at the change in Evelyn.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 85 
 
 Evelyn has tried to explain it to her. But she says she cannot 
 at all understand it. "Every one believed in Christianity ex- 
 cept 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 chai'acter, is very 
 winning. And this I notice especially with regard to her 
 mother, a deference and tenderness, which, with no peculiar 
 demonstrations 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 from Mr. "Wesley's new hymn-book, 
 and repeats to us bits from Mr. Wesley's sermons. And per- 
 haps, 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-day Hugh Spencer called, on his way from Cornwall 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
 
 86 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 little bit of home. But lie 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 1 1 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 stood in such awe, seemed quite sorry 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 Avars, 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 ex- 
 tremes. 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 mean. It had 
 always been her endeavour to do so, and she had found it the 
 wisest plan.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TBEVYL YA.\ . 87 
 
 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. 
 
 I told him I was sure he had no idea of the true love there 
 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 despond- 
 ing 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 be- 
 fore you. You'll mostly find nothing plain but the next step. 
 Yet your hearts need not sink for that. A Saviour's hand to 
 guide you is better than any map. It uphold* 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-pi'ints and to 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 confidence and joy ; " the feet in
 
 88 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 hind 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. 
 
 ? Lome 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 1 Father does not seem to see it, nor Jack. Can 
 it be, after all, only that, coming out of the glare of that brill- 
 iant 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 arc patched ; nor 
 how Mother's Sunday dress itself is faded. 
 
 And these cannot have changed much in a few months. 
 
 Indeed, as it is, I should not have noticed the furniture half 
 so much if we had met as usual in the hall, around our ordinary 
 table 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 
 positive wrong to notice the darns in the table-cloth, bleached
 
 90 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 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. 
 
 For 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. 
 
 No ; it was just the strain to be at high-holiday pitch which 
 was too much for the carpet, and the table-cloth, and our pre- 
 cious 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 91 
 
 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 dryly 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 
 lert to chance. 
 
 The troubled look came into Mother's face again. Trusty 
 evidently felt she needed consolation, and after 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 ! 
 AVhile 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, per-
 
 92 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 plexed old dog, he has seen it — he told nie 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 slam- 
 ming it. And I have not been here. But nothing on earth 
 shall ever move me from Mother's side again. 
 
 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 
 Mother 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 
 overtired. 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 1 " 
 
 " Oh, no," I said ; " every one has spoiled me with kindness." 
 
 " Spoiled you for the old home, Kitty 1 " 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 went away, will that 
 comfort you, Kitty 1 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.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 93 
 
 "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 to me with another 
 meaning. 
 
 " As long as we both 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 
 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 
 1 tranches of the old elms, and shimmered on the leaA'es of the old 
 thorn, and chequered the floor thi'ough the diamond lattice panes. 
 
 It was that I wanted — only that — prayer with thanksgiving. 
 It did me good from the moment I began. 
 
 And what wonder] Prayer is no soliloquy. The 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 ! 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 lire.'' 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.
 
 94 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 Margined 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 bad 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 
 breakers against the rocks ; the long roll of the ebbing wave, 
 as it swept the pebbles back from the white 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 that 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 Avill have 
 our old morning talks in the porch-room again." 
 
 I tried to make as light of the change as Mother did, to her ;
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 95 
 
 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. 
 
 The windows were open ; the low sunbeams slanted through 
 the thick leaves close outside, flickering on the clean, cool, gray 
 slabs of slate ; the fresh morning air came in, rippling the sur- 
 face of 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 green- 
 ness, and cream, and memories of childhood ; and I felt just as 
 much a child beside Betty, as when Jack and I had stood there, 
 humble petitioners to her bounty as the 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 1 Has no one seen how 
 ill Mother is 1 " 
 
 It was an indiscreet beginning. Betty looked on it as an 
 assault. For a minute she said nothing, then still continuing 
 apparently absoi'bed in her butter, she replied dryly, — 
 
 " Some folks think no one sees anything except they tell it 
 to the town-crier. Some folks, specially young folks, think 
 no one see anything but themselves." 
 
 "Oil, you know what I mean, Betty ! " I said. " How long 
 has Mother not been able to get up to have her milk 1 And 
 why did no one write me?" 
 
 "Why no one wrote I can't say, Mrs. Kitty," she replied 
 "Why / didn't write, is as plain as why the dog doesn't speak.
 
 96 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 Not that that is so very plain neither, leastways as regards 
 Trusty, for he sees more than a sight of ns 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 sub- 
 ordinate 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 1 and can anything 
 be done ? " 
 
 Then Betty, having laid the last finished roll on its white 
 dish, 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 said. " What do you 
 mean 1 " 
 
 "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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 97 
 
 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 hussies making an idol of their 
 ribbons, and I looked round on a many such that were there, 
 to see how they liked that. But 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 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 ; least- 
 ways if you don't go making an idol of her, and, with your 
 tears and your woful 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 
 
 7
 
 98 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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, immeasur- 
 able, 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, — 
 
 " Then the parson, after all, said nothing which particularly 
 suited you, Betty?" 
 
 " Suited ! no, Mrs. Kitty, he did not sure ! 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 1 " 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 sus- 
 picious brushing of her hand over her eyes. She was wont to 
 be as much ashamed of tears as a school-boy. 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 fools sob- 
 bing 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's-breadth, in a piece of wood that 
 mustn't be split. I could have knocked him down, Mrs. Kitty;
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 99 
 
 but there I stood, fixed and helpless as a worm with a pin 
 through it." 
 
 " But what did he say, Betty 1 " 
 
 " 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 1 " 
 
 " 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 1 " 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 pro- 
 voking 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 1 ?" 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 every- 
 thing 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 for the work the 
 Almighty gave me to do 1 But it's of 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?"
 
 100 DIARY OF AIRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 " 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 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 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 wonder- 
 ful 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 ! You can pray."
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 101 
 
 "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 only 
 feel the smart and the bruises, and they worrit me to that 
 degree I can barely abide B-oger, 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 won't 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."
 
 102 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 She rose, and once more wiping the tears from her face, she 
 went into the kitchen to set the rashers on the frying-pan for 
 breakfast. 
 
 But before she drowned her voice in the hissing 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 you 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 him- 
 self came strolling in in his easy unconcerned way, and seating 
 liimself 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 103 
 
 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 ! " 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 it now. If it is a little 
 expensive, we can save in other ways). 
 
 "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 fellows in the town and neigh- 
 bourhood." 
 
 " 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."
 
 104 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 "Leave the table, sir," said Father, "if you cannot speak 
 except to insult me." 
 
 Jack rose without a murmur, throwing the remainder of Lis 
 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 V 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 !" said Father, 
 and seizing the ribbon he threw it in the fire. 
 
 With that Jack grew warm and strode out of the house, and 
 Father grew cool, and seeing the tears in my 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 1 ?" 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 I 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 : —
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 105 
 
 M Perhaps I was hard on you, my boy. It was well-meant, 
 after all, buying your sister the ribbon." 
 
 But that was not at 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 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 kind 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 will 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 
 women were only made to endure patiently whatever the men 
 belonging to them inflict, consciously or unconsciously. But I
 
 106 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 think we should try to prevent them being selfish and incon- 
 siderate 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 1 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 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 morn- 
 ing 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 107 
 
 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 dryly. 
 
 " But it's your debt," I said. 
 
 "Kitty," he replied, "you are in the way to be one of 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
 
 108 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 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 1 " 
 
 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 1 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 ' 1 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 know he felt in the wrong, because he was so provok- 
 ing. If I could only have been quiet, and let the conviction
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 109 
 
 work ! But my heart was full, and my temper was 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 borrowetk 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 apprehen- 
 sive 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 un- 
 necessarily strong. Unnecessarily strong as regarded the im- 
 mediate occasion, but as regards that habit of his, what language 
 can be too strong 1 And what an opportunity I have thrown 
 away of helping him ! 
 
 It was only yesterday I was thinking how feeble my convic- 
 tions 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 Repent- 
 ance, 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 1 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
 
 110 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 gracious- 
 ness 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." 
 
 And he kissed me benignantly, and went away whistling, 
 "Begone dull care." 
 
 What can I do 1 It is plain the price of the cherry-coloured 
 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 the 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. Ill 
 
 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 any- 
 thing particularly. The chief thing I remember is a conversa- 
 tion I had with Hugh. 
 
 It was a calm evening. Father had rolled himself up in his 
 old military cloak with a foraging cap half 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 1 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 those Christian people
 
 112 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 on the Hock aboard or ashore." 
 
 "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 1 " 
 
 " 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 <rood 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 every- 
 where, 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 
 beins: ambassadors for Christ to win rebellious and wretched 
 men back to Him. 
 
 "Morning, noon, and evening," he said, "John Wesley goes 
 about proclaiming the tidings of great joy, in Ireland, America,
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 113 
 
 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 truth, 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 joy of telling these truths 1 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 imme- 
 diate remedy, which never failed. Think what it must be 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 haggard 
 starving men and women before you, with the power such as our 
 Lord had of supplying them all with bread here in the wilder- 
 ness, 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. 
 
 S
 
 114 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREYYLYAN. 
 
 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 clay, north 
 and south, in the crowded market-places, and in every neglected 
 corner, where there is a human being to listen 1 " 
 
 "I think not, indeed,'' I said; "but the difficulty seems to 
 me to get people to believe that they are orphans, and slaves, 
 and famishing." 
 
 " That is what Whitefield and the Wesleys do," he said. 
 "Or rather they make them understand that the faintness 
 every one feels at times is hunger, and that there is bread ; 
 that the cramping constraint, the uneasy pressure we so often 
 feel, is 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 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 1 " 
 
 "If I am called," he said, "must I not go?" 
 
 " But how can you know you are called 1 " 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 voca- 
 tion of Providence." 
 
 " Have you these three, Hugh 1 " 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."
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN . 115 
 
 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 ; but 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 be- 
 fore 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 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 1 
 
 Ought all places to religious people to be alike, — mere spaces 
 of this great featureless ocean we have to cross 1 Ought all 
 human beings to be alike to us — just masses of undistinguishable 
 " immortal souls " 1 
 
 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 1 I questioned myself ; or was it right I 
 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
 
 116 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK. 
 
 epistles. And our blessed Lord Himself, if He loved all equally, 
 surely loved each differently, 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 window-sill, 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 re- 
 lapsed 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 ad- 
 dressed 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 most politely re- 
 stored the letters after rifling the bags of their pecuniary con- 
 tents, the postman had been wounded in the fray, and this had 
 caused a delay of some clays. 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
 
 118 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 whose care it had been committed, after carrying it about some 
 clays in his pocket, forgot for whom it was meant, and not being 
 able to read, judiciously carried it back to the post-office 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 
 farther 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 dimin- 
 ished by the military successes of those "rascally French." 
 "We taught them another lesson, sir," he said, "in Marl- 
 borough's days." He broke into many strong military ex- 
 pressions 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 Hano- 
 verian court -lady deprecated their wrath by exclaiming, in 
 apologetic tones from her carriage window, " My clear 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 with drinking 
 to the Protestant Succession. But, again, his loyalty was sorely 
 tried by the tales of the quarrels between the King and the
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TBEVYLYAN. 119 
 
 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 
 villanous 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 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 par- 
 ticular, but he soon rallied. 
 
 "Sir," he said, "that fellow is a true-born Englishman, as
 
 120 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 by a mob of cowardly 
 ruffians, just before I 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 1 Not if he were the Pope him- 
 self, or the Pretender ! Is it my fault that he preaches what 
 the parsons don't like on the strength of my pasty 1 ? 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," said 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 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,
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 121 
 
 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. 
 
 " My 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 the 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 endan- 
 gered by grimy miners, your complexion by the sea-air ; 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 involved in the darkness of a county 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 has had so few privileges.' 
 
 " 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 dark colours in which 
 he paints the ' simpering heaps of gauze and brocade ' recom- 
 mended 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 remembers 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
 
 122 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 your excellences serve to barb a dart at ine, in reference to a 
 neighbouring potentate, whose estates march with those of the 
 Beauchainps, but whose manners do not ' march ' with your cor- 
 respondent'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-handker- 
 chief 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 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 would 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 1 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 roughness, more perhaps than I 
 have met with ; but I did not expect perplexities such as I 
 feel. 
 
 " My difficulties are not interesting, elevating difficulties,
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 123 
 
 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, per- 
 haps, the reason I have not had it. Mamma was a little uneasy 
 at first ; but when she 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 women 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 preach- 
 ings were far better things for a young 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 gamekeeper'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 
 go again. She is an honest old soul, and she says you reminded 
 her of your Aunt Maud who died, and she was a good woman, 
 if ever there was one.' 
 
 " So you see, Cousin Kitty, I have little chance of martyrdom.
 
 124 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 " 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, 
 nor in Aunt Jeanie, nor, my sweet cousin, in you. Lady Hunt- 
 ingdon 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 and pestled into a sweetmeat ; as if all 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
 
 & 
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 125 
 
 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 each seed ' His own body.' Is it not 
 true, Kitty 1 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 — 
 
 ***** 
 
 " 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 pun- 
 gent 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
 
 126 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 were the keenest penetration and the deepest 
 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 shoidd like to hear Mr. Wesley preach every Sunday ; he 
 would send me home detected in my inmost infirmities, un- 
 masked 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 127 
 
 among Christians, regards tins command 1 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 evil-speaking 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 expres- 
 sions of good-will to the person, and a hope that things may not 
 be quite so bad), then we call it " whispering." But in what- 
 ever 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 1 
 
 " ' 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 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 ! We serve the devil out of pure zeal for God ! '
 
 J28 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 "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 tell the force of love ! 
 
 " 'This step our Lord commands us to take^rs^,' 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 1 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 ! ' 
 
 " Afterwards he exhorted us to ' hear evil of no man. The 
 receiver is as 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 : — 
 " ' O 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 he 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 self-denial we should quickly feel in our hearts! How 
 would " our peace flow as a river," when we thus followed peace 
 wiili all men I How would the love of God abound in our 
 ils, while we thus confirmed our love to the brethren ! And 
 what an effed would it have on all that were united together 
 in the name of our Lord Jesus Chrisl ! How would brotherly
 
 DIAR Y OF MItS. KITT Y TREYYL YAN. 1 29 
 
 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 would 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 instructed, 
 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 
 further 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 "Wesley s, 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 in- 
 terested. 
 
 11 1 should like to have spent a week at that Epworth parson- 
 age where the Wesleys were cradled — that home which was 
 
 9
 
 130 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 no restraint on 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 bed-rooms 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 in their childish per- 
 plexities. 
 
 " 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 there, his noble wife 
 sold her rings to support him ; other female superfluities no 
 doubt had disappeared before, and his books were no super- 
 fluities in his eyes or hers : but in prison he read the prayers, 
 and preached to the wretched inmates, and found the jail (so he
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 131 
 
 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 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 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 ad- 
 vice, and she could not alter her convictions at his will or 
 her own. 
 
 " The old home at Ep worth 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
 
 132 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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. 
 
 " 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 unre- 
 served. 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 covet- 
 ousness ; and with a sufficient motive ! Yet his dress is at any 
 time, 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
 
 DIARY OF MBS. KITTY TMEVYLYAN. 133 
 
 has succeeded to hootings, and sobs to silence ; and Hugh 
 Spencer says, there is scai'cely a place where the Methodists 
 have been assailed by mobs where, from the very di'egs 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. 
 
 " 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 himself, 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 tell 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, recon- 
 ciled 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 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
 
 134 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 alone, begin to thrill with a new hope, he 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. 
 
 " Kitty, I believe Mr. Whitefield has brought this unutterable 
 joy to thousands and thousands, and that he lives for nothing 
 else but to bring it to thousands more. And this whole genera- 
 tion 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 ser- 
 mon 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 135 
 
 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 — seem 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, them- 
 selves 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 supererogation ; 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 everything 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-servants, fellow- 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 
 criticising at my leisure, had meantime been engaged in count- 
 less 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 sun- 
 shine 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
 
 136 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 far beyond the icy touch of criticism ; they are dear to me, 
 Kitty. We are bound together as fellow-servants 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 compelled by law to write a book himself. He 
 would see then what the difficulties of those he criticises 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 from 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. 
 
 " One was an old general, and he said —
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 137 
 
 " ' We have 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 golden days of Elizabeth and Shakespeare, and the 
 scattered Armada ; the iron of the Revolution (for rough as they 
 were, those men were iron); the brass of the Restoration ; and 
 now we have nothing to do but to beat out the dust and shav- 
 ings 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 1 ' asked the general. 
 
 " ' One for stealing a few yards of ribbon ; another for forging 
 a draft 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 
 live at the fag-end 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 by brother Harry ; 
 ' and Fielding, at all events, is a gentleman, and knows some- 
 thing 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 1 Not worth the name of literature ; frippery for a lady's
 
 138 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 drawing-room, — no more to be called literature than these man- 
 darins 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 work- 
 ing at our own palls. 
 
 " ' Besides,' resumed the old general, ' Handel is no English- 
 man. 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 have we, Whig or Tory, who would not sell 
 his country for a pension, or his soul for a place ? ' 
 
 " ' 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 times 1 ' 
 
 " ' 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 139 
 
 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 
 himself. The people came to him night and day, to hear 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 j 
 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 the 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 ! 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.'
 
 140 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 '"The Pope has tried that before now, sir,' I ventured to 
 suggest, ' and not found it altogether answer, — at least not in 
 England.' 
 
 '"True, Evelyn,' said my great-uncle, meditatively. 'These 
 outbursts of fanaticism are like epidemics ; they will have their 
 time, and then die 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 excite- 
 ment ; 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.' 
 
 " ' 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. 
 Panaticism 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 1 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 Harry. 
 
 " ' 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 1 ' 
 
 " ' Preach in the fields to those who won't come to church to 
 be taught 1 ' 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 ! ' 
 
 " ' 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 141 
 
 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 1 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 a corrupt and decaying age.' 
 
 " But, oh ! Cousin Kitty, when the world was turned upside 
 down seventeen hundred years ago, in that ' corrupt and decay- 
 ing 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 
 Mr. Wesley, and the other preachers in 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 aAvakened 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 own. But the 
 dead tree, alas ! crackles in the wind, — the life-bringing spring 
 wind, — and wonders what all this stir and twittering is about,
 
 142 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 and moans dryly 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 1 In your sunny chamber 
 alone, with the rooks cawing in your old elms, and the light 
 flickering through their branches on your floor 1 Or in Aunt 
 Trevylyan's closet, sitting at her feet, while 'Bishop Taylor' 
 lies open on the little table beside her 1 Or by the hall fire, 
 while uncle Trevylyan is reading for the hundredth time that 
 book on fortifications, soothed to occasional dozes by the drone 
 of your mother's spinning-wheel, 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 1 
 
 " 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, —
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 143 
 
 "'You are late, Evelyn, we shall scarcely have any time;' 
 and this very morning she said, — 
 
 ' ' I shall be glad when Lent conies. 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. 
 
 " 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 self-possessed 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 saw him, 
 she felt he was just a man she could trust. 
 
 But they do seem to have become such great friends very 
 quickly ! 
 
 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
 
 144 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 seem respectful or kind. I am 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 sorely 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 
 Taylor? 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 ! — more 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 
 sho 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 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,
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREYYLYAN. 145 
 
 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 Nelson, 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. 
 
 10
 
 VI. 
 
 HE song-birds, for the most part, have out-lived 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 " pin-money " 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 
 themselves. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 The grave autumn winds are sweeping in slow and 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 147 
 
 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 1 
 When will the earth rest and be quiet 1 ? 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 aveng- 
 ing 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. 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 disap- 
 pointed 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
 
 148 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 some- 
 thing 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 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 clays of victory are few, and the nights of watching 
 many, and the days of marching long, yet the old martial en- 
 thusiasm 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 com- 
 plete Jack's outfit. And many tears Mother lets fall on the 
 long seams and hems — although I am sure it is easier for ua 
 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 heart 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 149 
 
 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 my own for his comfort. For the bees, and the three 
 Spanish hens, whose honey and eggs constitute my " pin- 
 money," 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 going forth, but a going away. She shudders 
 as Father goes over his battles on the table after supjier, with 
 the bread and cheese for fortresses, and the plates and salt- 
 cellars for the armies, and talks of "massing forces," and " cut- 
 ting 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 it is meant that men must leave us one day, and 
 go forth into the world to do their work. 
 
 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, " I 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
 
 150 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 at home, the least we can do is to bear it cheerfully, and not 
 hinder them with repining looks or words." 
 
 " Only, Mother," I said, " it seems wronging the old happy 
 days to part from them so easily." 
 
 "The old happy childish days are gone, Kitty!" she said. 
 " Men cannot sit down on the march of life, gazing with linger- 
 ing 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 array, are there not?" 
 
 "What makes you so desponding, Kitty 1 ?" she 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." 
 
 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, star-
 
 DIARY OF iMRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 151 
 
 ing vacantly at the flames, and saying, as plainly as a clog 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 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. 
 
 I wish / could feel as if it were 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 Hender- 
 son'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 witli 
 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 1 She was a fool 
 ever to have hoarded it !' So that at last I actually had to take
 
 152 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 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 bene- 
 factor, saying, " There, my poor little Kitty, I will not disap- 
 point 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 cherry-coloured 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. 
 
 He 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 l-emember in all this 
 bustle ? Nothing but trifles, of course. Let me see : there 
 were a pair of shoe-buckles I saw the last time I was in Fal- 
 mouth, at Moses the Jew's, the newest fashion, in excellent 
 taste, I assure you, just such as I know Father would like to 
 see mc in. Yet just the kind of trifle I would not trouble him
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 153 
 
 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 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 fortunes, 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 and 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
 
 154 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 freely, as her heart was touched Avith this proof of Jack's gener- 
 ous intentions. " Poor fellow ! 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 he 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 1 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 1 And they must be paid. 
 I would work day and night, if I could tell how to earn any- 
 thing to pay them with. But fifteen guineas ! It is a fortune ! 
 How could I earn a guinea without Mother's knowing 1 And 
 would it even be true to Father and Mother to do this if I could 1 
 
 Evelyn could help me. But I could not ask her without 
 betraying Jack. 
 
 And how shall I ever feel safe from some one coming and 
 '• particularly wanting to see " Jack 1 
 
 Ought not Father and Mother to know 1 
 
 And yet would it not almost break Mother's heart 1 
 
 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 to 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
 
 DIARY OF MR'S. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 155 
 
 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 no longer. Whatever 
 comes of it, I must go and hear that Yorkshh'eman 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 her 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 accom- 
 panying 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. There was
 
 156 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 efl'ort, 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 murmurs 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 con- 
 versing with a little group of men ; and I watched the frank, 
 trustworthy face, and the tall, stalwart form, with no little 
 interest, remembering how he had been thrown down, and 
 trampled on, and bruised, and beaten by the mobs for Christ's 
 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.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TRLVYLYAN. 157 
 
 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 more 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 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 xohoseface 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 booh 
 of life: and the dead were judged out of those things that were 
 written in the books, according to their ivories.' Oh, what a scene 
 was opened to my mind ! 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 
 
 * John Nelson's Autobiography.
 
 158 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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. 
 
 " God had 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 ! 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 vnll 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 150 
 
 of the city ; for which they were enraged, and, pulling him 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 
 their feet ; but his countenance never changed, nor did he cease 
 to cry out, ' Thus saith the Lord, If ye Avill 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, ' O 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 guid- 
 ance, 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 ; but that stifled for the time his con- 
 cern 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 pros- 
 pered that he pursued, yet he felt he had something to learn
 
 160 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 that he had not learned. " He knew not" he said, " that it was 
 the great lesson of love to God and 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 ter- 
 rible 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 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 clown 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 ! 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 161 
 
 could he must 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 lis- 
 tened three months, because among them 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 to 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 
 
 11
 
 162 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 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 dread or fear, 
 'Thou art my Lord and my God.' Now did I begin to say, 
 ' O Lord, I will praise Thee : though Thou wast angry witli 
 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, ' O 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 Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in 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 send- 
 ing His servant into the fields to show me the way of salvation.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 163 
 
 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 a hymn followed me, 
 at first faint and broken, but soon rising strong and clear 
 through the morning air. I thought I had never heard pleas- 
 anter 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 are 
 barriers no one but herself could safely attempt to break down. 
 
 In the evening, while Mother and I were sitting by 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 I should be left for the night 
 with the burden of my morning expedition unconfessed, sud- 
 denly 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.
 
 164 DIARY OF MBS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 " 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, sure — and 
 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 1 " 
 
 "I am not saying anything against our parson, Missis," said 
 Betty ; " I'd as lief say anything against the King and the Par- 
 liament. 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 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 herb-lotion, 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 165 
 
 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 before I went." 
 
 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 ! 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 tender- 
 hearted ; but I couldn't help telling you. They 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 of my
 
 166 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 most delightful times. There is no service then in our parish 
 church. The Vicar rides to a daughter-church some miles off, 
 too far for us to reach, and we have the whole afternoon for 
 quiet. Father and Jack used 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 
 hillside, as it bent before the quiet breeze ; and I could hear 
 distinctly the crunching of the grass which Daisy was cropping 
 at 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 quiut, in the sunshine, like the labouring 
 oxen in the warm streak of gold 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 167 
 
 as if the whole earth were nestling under great, warm, motherly 
 wings. 
 
 My Bible lay open on my knee, but I had not been read- 
 ing for some time. I had not consciously been thinking or 
 even praying, my whole heart was resting silently in the 
 presence of God, as the earth around me lay silent in the sun- 
 shine ; conscious of His presence as the dumb creatures are con- 
 scious of the sunshine, as a babe is conscious of its mother's 
 smile ; neither listening, nor adoring, nor entreating, nor re- 
 membering, nor hoping, but simply at rest in God's love. 
 
 It seemed like waking, when a low murmur below my window 
 l'ecalled 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 downstairs 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, and case- 
 ments 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 grass-grown 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
 
 168 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 York- 
 shireman 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 Lord's, 
 and then it'll stand." 
 
 "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 Him the iniquity 
 of us all." 
 
 "There's a deal more, as good as that, my dear," she said; 
 "but I keep coming 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.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 169 
 
 Kitty, it was seeing. I saw in my heart the blessed Lord Him- 
 self, 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 His kind looks all the time, ' I am 
 not unwilling, I am quite content to bear it all for thee.' And oh, 
 my dear, my heart felt all right 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, and 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 murderer's, and now I was as happy as 
 a forgiven child, and all through seeing the blessed Lord in my 
 heart. And 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
 
 170 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 1 " 
 
 " 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 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, — 
 
 " 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREV1LYAN. 171 
 
 us both to do and to endure, and love lias 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." 
 
 " 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 good day, asked 
 where Mother was, and left me to go and find her? 
 
 It seems so much longer. 
 
 I felt surprised that he should have no more to say to me, 
 when we had not met for months, and he had been ordained in 
 the meantime. I thought his mind must be full of the " sub- 
 ject (or object) in which he and Evelyn are equally interested." 
 And I supposed he wanted to consult Mother about it, thinking
 
 172 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 1 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 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 V said Hugh. 
 
 Still I did not look up ; but I said, — 
 
 " It was not exactly that which Jack told me ; it was about the 
 other money you lent him, and I am to pay it you by degrees."
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 173 
 
 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 interested." 
 
 To think that Hugh had been wishing this so many years i 
 
 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 thank- 
 ful 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 think who 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.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 175 
 
 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 common 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 some- 
 times. I hope I shall not be a hindrance to Hugh. I must 
 not grudge his going out in the evening on any summons of 
 duty, on stormy nights, even though he may seem wearied 
 already with the clay's work. I must not let any womanish 
 fears prevent his visiting the sick, even though the sickness be 
 deadly contagious pestilence. Should I be less brave than a 
 soldier's wife, or a poor fisherman's 1 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 pai^adise, but as a campaign. And then it will be we, 
 always we ! and that makes all the difference. 
 
 Yet how could I bear to take this happiness if it were to
 
 176 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 special 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 had not known them before. 
 
 Hugh is not at all hopeless about Jack, although he knows all ; 
 but he says he seems like some 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 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 them all. But then, carving and associations have no 
 value in Betty's inventory. 
 
 She thinks much more of Mother's purchases and manufac- 
 tures, although she says clothes in these days are mere cob- 
 webs compared to the stuffs of our forefathers, when Master's
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 177 
 
 great-grandmother's wedding dress survived to become a chris- 
 tening robe for Master, and after that a covering for the best 
 great chair, and looked as good as new to the last. 
 
 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 un- 
 limited 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 pro- 
 digal, whilst living by the very faith he spent his life to pro- 
 claim. 
 
 " 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, Mr. 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. 
 
 " Nay," he replied ; " Mr. Wesley says now, ' I dare not ex- 
 clude 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 
 
 12
 
 178 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 wan- 
 dered quite away. 
 
 One 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 Fortification 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 
 intention of joining the Methodist Society which met in the 
 village. 
 
 Mother said gravely, — 
 
 " You can do as you like, Betty ; indeed I suppose you will 
 do as you like. This new kind of religion seems to make that 
 a necessity for every one." 
 
 Yery severe words for Mother ; yet Mother being the gentlest 
 of beings, is nevertheless in her gentle way absolutely impene- 
 trable 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 179 
 
 warn you. I do not understand this religion of violent excite- 
 ment and determined self-will. The religion I believe in, is one 
 which enables us to control our feelings and yield up our self- 
 will." 
 
 " Missis," said Betty, in a low, faltering voice, unusual with 
 her, " 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 yester- 
 day, 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 cry- 
 ing 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 
 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. 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 wer-e 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.
 
 180 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 " 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 un- 
 feignedly 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 any- 
 thing 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 '■pardoneth;'' and 
 that must mean forgives 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 all 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 V 
 
 " I can't well say, Missis," said Betty, " unless it is the 'now ' 
 and 'me.' I always listened to it all as if the parson were read- 
 ing 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 oioiv forgiving me, 
 that makes all the difference." 
 
 " But, 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.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 181 
 
 "I hope you do understand them, Betty, and are not delud- 
 ing yourself," said Mother ; and having thus reserved 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 discus- 
 sions with Betty. She turned your position neatly with her 
 quotations from the Prayer-book." 
 
 Mother coloured a little. 
 
 "You know, my dear," she said, "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 to- 
 gether. 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 contro- 
 versy by 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 all the more stiff and unyielding when once she begins ; 
 just as I have noticed that a captain of militia will wear his 
 
 Vide Wesley's Journal.
 
 182 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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, " I 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, look- 
 ing into her dear, pure, tender face, — 
 
 " Thy sins, Polly, must be a great weight indeed ! 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 than they deserve.' 
 Are these thy confessions'?" 
 
 She looked a little grieved at his turning the conversation 
 lightly, and soon after she went to rest. But this 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 1 Perhaps more women than men may creep 
 quietly and safely into heaven ; but every man who gets there 
 must be a hero, and 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 183 
 
 whole ten commandments at defiance — imprisoning a good man 
 for confessing his sins and believing they are forgiven. And 
 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 
 so 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 ' novo ' and the ' me.' " 
 
 "Hugh says John Nelson is a wonderful preacher, Father," 
 I said; "and some people think Hugh's own sermons are 
 beautiful." 
 
 " So, ho ! 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 pro- 
 bably 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
 
 184 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 ; 
 but I who do, intend to bring my most elaborate brocades, and 
 my largest hoops, and my choicest lace-lappets for that renowned 
 artist 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 for 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 Beauch^mp." 
 
 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's 
 manners, was only half pleased with the letter, and not at all 
 pleased at the prospect of the visit. 
 
 "Such an extraordinary mixture, Kitty!" she said — "Mr. 
 Wesley and Miss Pawsey, Methodists and hoop-petticoats ! 
 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 wish you had not drawn her such a picture of me, my poor 
 fond Kitty ! What will she think 1 However, she was very 
 kind to you, and vvc must do our best."
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 185 
 
 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 defi- 
 ciencies, 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 nervous 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. 
 
 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,
 
 186 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 it 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 Cousin Evelyn's case he evidently felt to be 
 exceptional. Like every one else with Evelyn, but quite in 
 contradiction with his own usual sentiments, Trusty evidently 
 felt her approval was even more necessary than his in the 
 acquaintance, and kept sitting beside 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 187 
 
 eves, Kitty," continued Mother, "that goes to my heart — a 
 kind of orphaned look. Perhaps her home is not so 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 Aunt Beau- 
 champ. I thought it would be a breach of hospitality. Mother 
 always taught us it would be such a treachery to gossip about 
 the secrets of 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 
 thouirht 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.
 
 188 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 But to hear her talk about Parson Wesley and his sermons, 
 with that fly-away lace on her head, and her long curls, 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." 
 
 "May be, 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 be 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 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 189 
 
 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've 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 orna- 
 ments, nor nose jewels, nor round tires like the moon, nor bells 
 on my toes.' 
 
 "'You may smile, Mrs. Evelyn,' said Betty very gravely, 'but 
 I think it'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 xoas 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 1 " I asked. 
 
 "I was angry," said Evelyn, "for I thought Betty harsh and 
 uncharitable, and I said, — 
 
 " I hare 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
 
 190 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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.' I 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 grow- 
 ing 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 clay 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 191 
 
 than they wore 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 nov), to be 
 worn by all and woven into the coarse stuff of everyday life — 
 a religion to be girt about a man on the battle-field, and at the 
 mine, and in the fishing-boat — he had scarcely thought till he 
 met John Nelson." 
 
 It is a great pleasure to take Cousin 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 
 across 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 everyday footsteps 
 in the open world, until she looked out on it from that caA'ern. 
 
 " Think, Cousin Kitty," she said, " we are walking every hour 
 of the day in that fairy world of glory and beauty without know- 
 ing it! and people call it 'this every-day life,' and this 'woi'k-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 1 " 
 
 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 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.
 
 192 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 dulness in taking it all so quietly ; until one day, 
 when I said so to Hugh, he replied, — 
 
 "It is not clulness, Kitty, that makes you never think of ex- 
 claiming, every now and then, as you look at your Mother, 
 ' What a picture that face is ! ' And yet I am sure Raphael 
 never painted a countenance of more sacred purity and tender- 
 ness than hers. 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 picture-gallery they con- 
 tain. But still it is a picture-gallery — a collection of master- 
 pieces to her. I think you 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 everyday work 
 among them ; they 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 193 
 
 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 sun- 
 set 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 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 
 smaller 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 ! 
 
 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 
 
 13
 
 194 DIARY OF Mils. KITTY TEEVYLYAN. 
 
 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. 
 
 We have had a charming little excursion round part of the 
 coast, Father, and Evelyn, and I, and on our way home we were 
 present at one of Mr. Wesley's great field-preachings at Gwen- 
 nap 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 ward- 
 robe, 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 ex- 
 cavating a church for tens of thousands ! When we arrived at 
 the place thousands of people were there already, standing about 
 in groups conversing eagerly, 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 cot- 
 tages on the moors, the mother carrying the baby, and the 
 father leading the little ones, leaving the home empty ; com-
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 195 
 
 ■ 
 
 panies of miners, with grimy faces and clothes, from the mines; 
 fishermen, with rough weather-beaten faces from the shores. 
 Few of the countenances were dull ; many of them were wild, 
 with dark dishevelled hair, eager dark eyes, and rugged, expres- 
 sive 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 ! 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 self-possessed, 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 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 oc- 
 cupied 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 benevo- 
 lent face.
 
 196 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 naming 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 
 earnestly Mr. Wesley invited all to return 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 quiet- 
 ness, discovered by fixed looks, weeping eyes, and 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 ecstasy and praised God. At moments a deep 
 spontaneous amen rose 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, 
 
 * Vide Letter by Ralph Erskine in Wesley's Journal
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 197 
 
 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. 
 
 " 'Tis love ! 'tis love ! 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." 
 
 To 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, bare- 
 foot, 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 encour- 
 agement or welcome, to which they could only respond by a 
 sobbing, " The Lord bless you," or by 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 these 
 preachings, 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 those 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 him, " I believe, in my soul, it is power from
 
 198 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 heaven. So help me God, I will never say a word against those 
 men again." 
 
 And the next evening when we sat around the fire, and 
 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 nine-tenths 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 only 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 V 
 
 "Yes," said Mother gently, but not very hopefully. "I am 
 very old-fashioned. But I confess I am afraid of conventicles." 
 
 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'll pass away, ninety-nine 
 hundredths of it. And so does the rain from heaven, goes back
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 199 
 
 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 neigh- 
 bours 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 congrega- 
 tion 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 softly 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 one another, — 
 
 "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.
 
 200 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 When the evening hymn was sung (and I never enjoy the 
 evening hymn as on those Sundays when those poor old quaver- 
 ing 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 our wild coast scenery, 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 seeth- 
 ing 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, dash each other high into the 
 air in jets and flashes of foam, or charge the black rocks with 
 their thundering volleys, to recoil from their jagged edges in 
 cascades into the black caldron 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
 
 DIAR Y OF MRS. Kl TT Y THE I YL YA X. 20 1 
 
 of the little creek near 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 
 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 1 " I said. 
 
 " Worse than that, worse than that, Mrs. Kitty," she moaned, 
 scarcely 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 
 wasn't us who rose the storm. And Toby never set a false 
 light on the rocks, nor gave any man a push back into the sea, 
 like some other folks. And if, as he keeps crying out, he didn't 
 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 1 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 sends on the shore 1
 
 202 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 
 calm 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 hardly left his mouth, Mrs. Kitty, when there was the gnaw- 
 ing 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 1 For Parson Wesley said there's no fainting away and 
 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 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 
 nothing to do but to go to the Justices." 
 
 Evelyn was deeply moved, and when we x^eached home and
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 203 
 
 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 ignoi'ant 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 1 " 
 
 "I used to be afraid," she continued, after a pause, "that 
 Mr. Wesley's was blind fanatical zeal, well meant but mis- 
 guided ; 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 bitter- 
 ness, or has not love for its inspiration." 
 
 And Mother said, thoughtfully, — 
 
 " II is 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 else- 
 where, and have succeeded again and again; yet it always 
 comes back how dear the old home is, and how the people 
 love "Master 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 con- 
 fess 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, without 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 foun- 
 tain 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
 
 DIARY OF MI1S. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 205 
 
 could, would we take the choice out of God's hands into our 
 own ? " 
 
 And I do iind 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 minister- 
 ing 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 ! 
 
 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 about a thousand years, and his 
 sermons will probably be either elementary treatises on the
 
 206 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 impropriety and danger of stealing, and resisting magistrates, 
 or acute dissections of the controversies of the ante-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 hay. 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 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 an unutterable 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 had never heard it 1 " 
 
 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 
 so 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 to do ? "
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 207 
 
 " 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." 
 
 " It would be little sacrifice to me, Kitty," he said in a very 
 low voice, " if you could." 
 
 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 can- 
 not 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 fool 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
 
 208 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 tell Mother of Hugh's purpose, or scarcely to 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 perhaps 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. 
 
 " How 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 ! 
 
 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 char- 
 acter, 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 1 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 209 
 
 melancholy were to happen to Betty or Koger. 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 1 " 
 
 And that did help 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 
 
 14
 
 210 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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. More- 
 over, change of air, she says, works wonders, especially with 
 a little troublesome unconquerable cough such 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 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 con- 
 siders 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 remonstrance) 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 pepper- 
 mint 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 ! 
 
 Nevertheless Evelyn has carried her point, and in a week we 
 are to start.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 211 
 
 To-day Hugh and I went to bid Widow Treffiy good-bye. 
 She was out, but we found Toby cowering over the fire in much 
 the same hopeless attitude as Evelyn and I had found his 
 mother. He had been to the Justices, 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 do believe that 
 poor hand that clutched the purse was dead ! They say dead 
 hands do clench 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, and 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 1 " said Toby, with almost 
 a sob of agony. 
 
 " Suppose that poor lad ivas not quite dead," Hugh continued, 
 "and you might have brought him to life, what would your 
 crime be 1 " 
 
 " 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," 
 
 " It would have been murder ! " said Hugh, very distinctly 
 and slowly, in a low 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
 
 212 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 face from our gaze. But Hugh held him fast, and 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 com- 
 mitted murder, I have no doubt, for he felt crucifixion no more 
 than he deserved. King David had committed murder, and 
 had 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 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 213 
 
 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," Hugh said as we 
 walked home, "but T 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 hives in bringing 
 such help and comfort to our neighbours in their sorrows and 
 bewilderments ! But I will not murmur. If I could see all 
 the way instead of only a step, I should wish things to be 
 exactly 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 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 
 behindhand, 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
 
 214 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 these 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 from their comrades, 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!" or, "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!" 
 When 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 Cod and calling on all to love Him, till he could 
 speak no more. I call that a brave death for any man. In- 
 deed,' 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 quite so good a
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 215 
 
 preparation for a battle or a hospital-bed as the psalm- singing 
 and preaching you despise. At least,' he added, rather sar- 
 castically, '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 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 wonder less, and adore more. 
 For in your home I have learned more of what love is than I
 
 216 DIARY OF MBS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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, " O Kitty, how much you have taught me !" 
 
 "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 ! Do you not know that there are 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 com- 
 pared 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." 
 
 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 especial care of Aunt Beauchamp's housekeeper, 
 with a travelling larder of plum-cake, Dutch gingerbread, 
 Cheshire cheese, Naples biscuit, neats' tongues, cold boiled 
 beef, bottles of usquebaugh, black cherry brandy, cinnamon 
 water, and strong beer, to which were added sundry 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 horse- 
 back to guard us from the clangers 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 217 
 
 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 high- 
 waymen. 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, " pisky-led," 
 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 land- 
 ladies came bowing and courtesy ing to receive " her ladyship's 
 orders." 
 
 " Kitty, my dear," she said, " I really think I ought to tell 
 them this is not our coach. I feel like an impostor." 
 
 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 ; where- 
 fore 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 land- 
 ladies, so that by the time that 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 in- 
 creased by encountering some noisy parties of gentlemen re- 
 turning drunk from various entertainments, and showing their 
 valour by knocking down the poor old watchmen, or wrenching 
 off the street-knockers. 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 pistol with some very strong military denunciations,
 
 218 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLTAN. 
 
 at the head of one, demanding to know their names, whereupon 
 the whole company decamped, leaving Father in great wrath 
 at the constables, the 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 devo- 
 tions 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 up all for lost — our goods, 
 and even our Uvea And now being in safety, we must give 
 all praise to Him who lias delivered u 
 
 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 were 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 con- 
 science for clays ; while a hard man inflicts a score of wounds 
 in a day on his family and dependants, and never has a re- 
 proachful 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 thousand 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 as 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
 
 DIAR Y OF MRS. KITT Y TREVYL YAN. 219 
 
 Ills 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 seem tq 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 our- 
 selves 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 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 of 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
 
 220 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 strongest weapon which we have with which to help each other 
 is prayer." 
 
 It always gives me so much 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 ! 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 1 
 
 Aunt Beauchamp was at first full of the most sanguine hopes 
 of curing Mother. She had herself (she declared) experienced 
 unspeakable good from a concoction called " 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 nerves are liable. She knew, moreover, an in- 
 comparable doctor who had effected cures that could only be 
 called miraculous; although the ordinary physicians and surgeons, 
 in their bigotry, were narrow-minded 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 composi- 
 tion, and sedulously avoids all display."
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 221 
 
 This gentleman, after many entreaties, at length consented to 
 undertake dear Mother's case. 
 
 Feeling her pulse, as Aunt Beauchamp said, " in that inimit- 
 able 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 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." 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 be- 
 cause 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 street distracts her, and Aunt Beauchamp is be- 
 coming 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 to- 
 morrow. 
 
 I do not find the household in Great Ormond Street the same 
 as when I left. Evplvn has more t<> suffer at home than sho
 
 222 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 ever hinted to me ; not, indeed, exactly persecution, but little 
 daily annoyances which are harder to bear — those little name- 
 less 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 eccen- 
 tricities. 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 con- 
 venticles," as he calls the preachings at Lady Huntingdon's, the 
 Tabernacle, or the Foundry. 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 "lam 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 wilfulness, or want of tact ;
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 223 
 
 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 pro- 
 bably 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 His heart. At least, Cousin Evelyn," I said, " I 
 think I have found it so sometimes." 
 
 She coloured, 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! Per- 
 haps 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
 
 224 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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! think what it was to 
 Him — shame, agony, death, worse than death. Shall I call my 
 little discomforts crosses 1 " 
 
 " Jesus said, Every one who followed Him was to take up His 
 cross," I said. 
 
 " He did," she replied thoughtfully. Then looking up with 
 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! 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 anything. 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, O 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 irritabil- 
 ity 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 225 
 
 soul Las found that rest in God ; and the time will surely come 
 when you may tell them how. Who knows 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 
 divine 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 
 the joyful answer to your prayers may be 1 who knows how 
 soon your cross may blossom into a tree of life 1 " 
 
 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 indeed how soon 
 my cross may blossom into a tree of life 1 It is in the nature 
 of all crosses made from the fragments of His, is it not 1 Not 
 nothing, Kitty. Our trials are not even trifles; they are the 
 precious withering grains of a harvest of eternal joys ; they are 
 the fiery furnace of incorruptible graces for us, and, perhaps, 
 for others too." 
 
 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. 
 
 15
 
 226 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 have been more sur- 
 prised 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 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 ! " 
 
 "But what has he done?" I asked ; "it cannot be so very 
 bad." 
 
 "No!" 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 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 Hender- 
 son was more angry than ever, and said John Wesley was an
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 227 
 
 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 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, 
 O Kitty !" and she broke out sobbing again, "he was gone — 
 he was gone ! 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 in 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 ! 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
 
 228 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 now and then a talk with Aunt Jeanie 
 and our old gardener. They tell me the good things he said 
 and did, and we cry together over him. They loved the lad ; 
 he was a kind lad, Kitty ; all the servants loved him. Oh, I 
 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 convic- 
 tion 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 bands, class-meetings, prayer-meetings, 
 and dress and demeanour, are the sole model left upon earth of 
 Scriptural piety ; that his Arminian doctrine 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 convic-
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 229 
 
 tion remains passive in her mind, not only does she lay aside 
 every ornament as 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 signi- 
 ficantly at the little gold brooch encircling a lock of Father's 
 hair, with which Mother clasps her neckerchief. The one 
 Scriptural decoration for females, she vehemently and authorita- 
 tively 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. She declares him to be at once 
 a red-hot Calvinist, a lukewarm Laodicean, and a frozen Anti- 
 nomian. She attacks his doctrines with bitter and fiery asser- 
 tions of the universal love of God ; and he meets her with cool 
 and iri'esistible 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. 
 
 Aunt Henderson's favourite doctrine, however, is the perfec- 
 tion 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 self-deny- 
 ing labours among the slaves and outcasts abroad, if by creed 
 they are " poor sinners," in life they seem to be great saints.
 
 230 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 her 
 cling more than ever, " like a bewildered child " (she says), to 
 the arms of her dear mother the Church. As it is Lent, she 
 and I attend morning and evening prayers every day in a church 
 close at hand, 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 I 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 Prayer-book 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 
 most of them for us, and in general there is very little con- 
 troversy in it except with the world, the flesh, and the devil. 
 
 Yet I cannot help seeing that rougher and less melodious
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYA X . 231 
 
 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 war- 
 fare 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. 
 
 Aunt Henderson has on this subject a theory of her own. 
 She says it is evident folly to imagine that medicine can be any- 
 thing 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, over- 
 whelming Mother with beef-teas and jellies, and sick-room deli- 
 cacies 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 flight and Mi*. 
 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 purse ; it does not sell the trinket to change it into
 
 232 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 bank-notes 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 1 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 ! Cousin Tom has done so wrong, has made such a terrible 
 mistake ! I am sure he will never find any real peace or good, 
 nor really learn what the love of God is, until he humbles him- 
 self 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 233 
 
 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 
 sad !) 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 were a kind of shield thrown 
 around him. 
 
 Yet I know Hugh 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. 
 
 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 
 bed-side (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 clay 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 Mistress 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 tor- 
 mented with the good people of his time, and their hit notions 
 and fancies. One thought the resurrection was past already ;
 
 234 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 and a stranger fancy than that has, I consider, never yet pos- 
 sessed 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 bairns, I 
 think it would be a wonderful hel]} in quarrels among Christians, 
 if, 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 be- 
 wildered 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 a 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 the rain or sunshine. And if Mr. Wesley saw this, I can 
 conceive his honest heart rising against it, and his saying, ' You 
 are not called to keep sinning and repenting ; you are called to 
 be holy, to be ])erfect. 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 fol- 
 lowed when he began to cut and shape his desires into a doc- 
 trine, 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 fire- 
 side into a guard-room ; and great guns bristle out at the win-
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 235 
 
 dows, 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 com- 
 forted Mother greatly, as 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 could 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 '/' and 'ye' and '■now.' 
 But when men write theology, they make it ' he ' and ' they ' and 
 ' then,' which makes all the diffei'ence. 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 prayer in the com- 
 pany of the great multitude will be as simple as that in solitude ; 
 and where we shall learn all we are to know by looking, not at 
 the past or the future, but into the face of God !" 
 
 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 im-
 
 236 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 prove 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, as far as you could," 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 drink eth of the rain and the 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; as far as they can" 
 she added, rising as she did now 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 month 
 since I scarcely expected to be. 
 
 At Hackney on Friday morning, March the 8th, 
 m 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 fol- 
 lowed, 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 basin which were 
 rattling in that unaccountable way against each other. 
 
 It flashed on me at once that it was the earth that was mov- 
 ing — the solid earth itself heaving like the sea ! 
 
 My first impulse was to throw myself on my knees by the 
 bed-side. 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 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 those familiar things than there 
 would have been in the roar of a cannonade or any other strange 
 sound.
 
 238 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 But besides these noises, and through, and behind, and under- 
 neath them, came a low distant rumble like thunder, which yet 
 was not thunder ; not above, but beneath, for it seemed quiver- 
 ing 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 land- 
 ing, 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 Hender- 
 son 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 bed-side, 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 under- 
 ground thunder ; and then a fearful crash above us, 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 stillness we heard the wind rustling in the tall 
 elm-tree close to the window, and saw that the dusk was slowlv 
 creeping into dawn. 
 
 And Mother said solemnly, —
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 239 
 
 " It was to be in the morning, Kitty ! At least I always 
 thought so. And 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 I 
 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 she thought He might indeed be at hand, 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 bed-side, 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 h'reverence 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 had so little 
 imagination.
 
 240 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 un- 
 barred, 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." 
 
 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 preach- 
 ing-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 ivill ive 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 con- 
 tinued 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 
 
 * Vide Wesley's Journal.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 241 
 
 door, and she herself crept out of it with Evelyn, her gray hair 
 streaming in dishevelled locks under her hood, her face wan and 
 haggard with terror and the absence of rouge. 
 
 " My dearest sister," she exclaimed, throwing herself hysteri- 
 cally into Aunt Henderson's arms, " the chimney-stacks were 
 crashing through the roofs in Great Ormond 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 morning service at the Foundry. 
 
 " My dear sister Henderson," she sobbed, " you and Kitty, 
 and Evelyn, and every one, have become so good ! and I 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 Tabernacle, 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." 
 
 " My dear sister Beauchamp," replied Aunt Henderson, 
 grimly, " we cannot go in our chairs to heaven." 
 
 " What do you mean, sister V 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 comes back from her retreat in Lent looking so 
 relieved and comfortable, feeling she has arranged everything 
 
 16
 
 242 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 clone 
 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 ; I 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 ; and 
 we started at midnight. Link boys ran beside us through the 
 dark and silent streets. The city seemed deserted. We met 
 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 lament- 
 ing 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 re- 
 vealed 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 243 
 
 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 high- 
 ways 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 rev- 
 erence crept over the manner of both Father's sisters towards 
 Mother, before we left London. 
 
 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 good 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 Aclamic or angelic perfection. He admits that even the per- 
 fect 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 tighten- 
 ing 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 ! "
 
 244 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 The parting between Mother and dear Aunt Jeanie was like 
 a leave-taking of sisters ; and for keepsakes Mother gave a be- 
 loved old volume of Mr. George Herbert's hymns, and Aunt 
 Jeanie an old worn copy of the letters of Mr. Samuel Rutherford. 
 
 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 scare- 
 crows." 
 
 But on the morning we went away, when we went to her 
 bed-side 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 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 re- 
 monstrated, and declared he would not answer for the conse- 
 quences to the horses on those break-neck 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 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 245 
 
 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 our- 
 selves 1 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 Prayei'-book, 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 grate- 
 ful 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 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 
 chant broke on us from the opposite hill. Solemnly the mea-
 
 246 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 sured music rose and fell, like the rise and fall of waves on a 
 calm day, with silent measured pauses between, 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 move- 
 ment, we knew too well what the sad, dark procession must be. 
 We did not say anything to 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 car- 
 ried 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." 
 
 "Poor old Widow Treffry was no martyr, and not much of a 
 saint," said Betty candidly ; " though they do say, poor soul, 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 whine, he let off the remainder of his exuberant 
 spirits in an eccentric excursion into the poultry -yard, causing 
 great quackings and cack lings and fl titterings there, by his 
 
 * Vide Wesley's Journal.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 247 
 
 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 supper-table, in our 
 chambers, everywhere.; the chairs set in the very corner we 
 liked, the preserves and biscuits we preferred, a little fresh 
 packet of Virginian tobacco for Father, and in Mother's cham- 
 ber her favourite books placed on a little table by her bed-side, 
 every corner of every room sweet and fresh with laborious 
 sweeping and rubbing. Welcomes glistened from every white 
 table-cloth 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, scrubbing-brushes, 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 to-night 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.
 
 248 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 "Poor, dear Missis," said Betty, "yes, sure, she's 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 with- 
 out 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 he 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, — 
 
 " 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,
 
 DIA RY OF MRS. KITT Y TRE V YL YA N. 249 
 
 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 timorsome 
 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 ! " 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 should meet troubles 
 as Mr. Wesley says he likes to meet mobs. " I always like to 
 look a mob in the face," said he. Yet we ought not to go oat 
 of oar way to meet the mob, or the troubles. 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 ivaiting 
 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
 
 250 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 he kept hy any clinging touch of mine, than either 
 Jack or Hugh ! 
 
 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 to-morrow she 
 may be a little stronger than to-day ; and so by degrees all may 
 be well. 
 
 Yet it is just when I have reasoned myself into most hope 
 that the old fears come back most powerfully. 
 
 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 1 
 
 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 to 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 251 
 
 reports I have heard of the parish, as to wrecking and other 
 lawless proceedings." 
 
 " Indeed, sir," said Mother, smiling, " wc 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 appalling— 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 continued, qualifying his assertion 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 had 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 allu- 
 sions are made to the clergy ; that it is spoken of as a ' great 
 marvel ' that any good gift or grace should be given to bishops 
 or curates ; and that last Sunday evening it was actually stated,
 
 252 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 
 into 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 Yicar, evidently 
 greatly relieved. " And only a few aged people 1 Within the 
 legal number, no doubt ; not more than thirty-nine 1 " 
 
 " I never counted, sir," said Mother. 
 
 " No doubt, my dear madam, no doubt ; but you should 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." 
 
 "Perhaps, Mother," I ventured to suggest, "the Vicar's 
 informant was a dissenter. You always read the prayer, ' O 
 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 shows 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 253 
 
 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 confound me with the Methodists, 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 1 " 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Kitty," said Betty, "I told him pretty nigh 
 everything I could think of ; about the wreckers tying lanterns 
 to horses' tails to entice the ships on the rocks, and murdering 
 the crews, and firing on the king's men, and about the poach- 
 ing, 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 and 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
 
 254 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 parish 1 I only wish I could terrify the old gentleman out of 
 the country." 
 
 Finding Betty in an approachable mood, I took the oppor- 
 tunity 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 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, least- ways 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 but to bear it. For Tve 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 bark 
 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 know, to 
 be perfect here.' And if Parson Wesley ever came across such I
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 255 
 
 can fancy 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," concluded 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 dear, for 
 Parson Wesley \s not the Bible, and it isn't at his judgment 
 seat 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
 
 256 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 gray pony, 
 a basket full of " little comforts " hanging from the pommel of 
 the saddle. We found the cottage door open, but no one with- 
 in. 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 gray pony was turned loose to graze on the short 
 sweet turf near the cottage, the contents 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."
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 257 
 
 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 rhould 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 never lifted his hand against the donkey without some- 
 how 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 glory 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 bo}>- 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 
 
 17
 
 258 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 human hands, but charged with a mere 
 inanimate cargo of merchandise 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 1 " — " She has gone down 
 like a shot ! " or " She makes a good fight ! " — " Fire your guns, 
 there's no hand to help, the wind '11 beat you ! " — " Never mind ; 
 the waves '11 do the rest" — " There '11 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 sup- 
 posed 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 he 1 
 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 clown 
 fiercely, in a blundering way, on some unlucky poor soul or 
 other, although very commonly 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 offendei' 
 and hurt or crushed him.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 259 
 
 And lie had also a dim notion that there was some mysterious 
 connection between this crreat destructive and avenain£r some- 
 thing 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 in- 
 tolerable 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 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 sin- 
 ners, "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 through our eyes, which
 
 260 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 we cannot veil, into the black spot 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. 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 1 " 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-meet- 
 ing. Before I went to the 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 mad- 
 ness, 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 
 had got through. But when I went to the class and heard 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-.
 
 DIARY OF MliS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 261 
 
 leader is no great speaker, but he's got a wonderful feeling 
 
 heart, and a fine voice for the hymns, and it's 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 that settled down in my heart. I 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 ; 
 Tarn and look upon me, Lord, 
 
 And break 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 ! " 
 Surely with that dying word, 
 
 He turns, and looks, and cries, " 'Tis done ! " 
 Oh, my Heeding, loving Lord, 
 Thou break 'st my heart of stone . 
 
 > n 
 
 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 bad lately haunted him night ami day, another
 
 262 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 Countenance rose before hirn, 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 reconciling 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 re- 
 conciliation, and he was singing, — 
 
 "Thee will I love, my 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 fulness of pity and love; and those words, "'Tis 
 done! 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, — ' Not to Me, all is well with Me ; 
 but to all the rest for My sake.' And that," concluded Toby, 
 " is what I live in hopes it'll be given me to do, before I die." 
 
 " How, Toby 1 " 
 
 " 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 263 
 
 watched for the cargoes. And one of these days it's my belief 
 the Lord '11 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'll 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 1 ?" 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 gray 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 or journal 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 begin- 
 ning. 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 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 disap- 
 pointed 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).
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 265 
 
 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 V 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;' or, 'By the Mass, that's true !' I try to speak 
 of the love of God to men, and of 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 Pome, (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-giving truth that God is love and 
 loves the world — that He has redeemed us at infinite cost — that 
 His one command to us is 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 sAvaddling 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 have to 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 con- 
 sequence of this persecution, nowhere, Mr. Wesley says, have
 
 266 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 to- 
 gether 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 them- 
 selves, so easily touched and so easily turned aside. And Mr. 
 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 
 ready 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 sub- 
 side, 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 in- 
 tended 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 sentinels 
 of Prejudice to sleep, and leave the fortress of Conscience open 
 to the assaults of the Truth.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 267 
 
 " I have only once myself encountered a really furious mob. 
 I had been speaking to an attentive crowd in an open place 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 Mary ?' 
 
 " 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 physically no stronger than yourself ; but which 
 all together 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 love to 
 find hundreds of your fellow-men, and even of women, no one of 
 whom, perhaps, alone would refuse you help and shelter, trans- 
 formed 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 them- 
 selves, and I escaped with a graze or two on my forehead. 
 
 "But, Kitty, it was not until I had spent more than one
 
 268 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 
 faint 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 I never felt it, with half the power before. 
 "And then I recollected yet another mob which also accom- 
 plished its jmrpose, mercilessly pelting its victim 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 White- 
 field'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 Ave 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 Ii'ish, easily
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 269 
 
 moved to tears and laughter, their circumstances of bondage, 
 (and in many cases) of exile, making the tidings of free grace, 
 of a Saviour loving 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, l cruel mockings and scourgings,' in- 
 flicted, 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 for- 
 giveness with a fortune in his hands, that should make it plain he 
 sought forgiveness for its own sake 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 fought against this very much at first, but I 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 work- 
 ing, 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
 
 270 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 friends, especially to one young gambling nobleman Cousin 
 Evelyn warned us against. He has found them out, lie 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 postscript his tone changes from these rather cynica] 
 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 penetrat- 
 ing into its heart 1 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 rendered 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."
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 271 
 
 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 
 letter put him in. 
 
 M 'Brillicmt prospects,' indeed," lie said, "to be the servant 
 of a beggarly trading company ! ' Good names ! ' too good, at 
 least, to be dragged through the mire by a set of scoundrelly 
 swindlers, just like the old South Sea Bubble." 
 
 Irritated more and more by his own indignant words, 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 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 wdd oats must be sown. 
 Jack '11 be an honour to the old name yet "
 
 272 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 ? 
 Say you do not think it can 1 " 
 
 There was something in that childlike 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. And that must help him." 
 
 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.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 273 
 
 Then through the anguish came the deliverance and the un- 
 utterable 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 1 Are we on dry land once 
 more 1 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 1 or 
 are we still on the waves, and is this only a temporary lull ? 
 
 The day after Father's reading that unhappy letter of poor 
 Jack's, Mother tried to rise as usual, and come downstairs ; 
 but she fainted whilst dressing ; and Betty and I found it diffi- 
 cult 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 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, " of the most 
 alarming kind. Of the most alarming kind, Mr. Trevylyan, to 
 the uninitiated ! There is a slight flushing and trembling. Some- 
 times, 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 pre- 
 scription lately from the surgeon of a Spanish ship. I have no 
 doubt we shall be well enough to do anything — to ride after tho 
 
 18
 
 274 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 hounds if we please, Captain Trevylyan, in a week or two. A 
 generous diet, and, above all, cheerful conversation, such as, I 
 am sure (he concluded, making a bow to me), cannot fail, my 
 dear young lady, with you for the nurse. Above all, cheerful- 
 ness. 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 in very different states of mind. 
 
 "A very sensible man," said Father; "a very skilful and 
 penetrating man. Kitty, you see, we must cheer up." 
 
 And going up to Mother's bedside, he said, — 
 
 " My 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 restora- 
 tion. 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 recom- 
 mended 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," she 
 concluded, " that I think medicine has much to do with poor 
 dear Missis, one way or the other." 
 
 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 275 
 
 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, occa- 
 sionally 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 noth- 
 ing 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 
 my heart, and look very cheery in Mother's chamber. 
 
 But when, as night came on, Mother's eyes seemed to grow 
 brighter and larger than ever, and her utterance more rapid, 
 and at last, instead of those sanguine eager plans about Jack, 
 she began to talk as eagerly about all kinds of trifles, and at 
 length I crept out to tell Father I was sure she was 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 his 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, listening to Mother's dear gentle voice
 
 276 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 raised to that unnatural eager tone, saying things that were no 
 thoughts of hers, demanding replies to all kinds of wild ques- 
 tions, — 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 dare to put in words, while the poor faithful 
 old dog licked my hand with a little perplexed whine. There was 
 something in 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 sup- 
 pose 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. "
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 277 
 
 So Father was appointed carrier ; 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 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 uncon- 
 scious eyes ! To close the door between us seemed like rolling 
 the stone before a sepulchre. I should have 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.
 
 278 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 Yet after I liad lain down and Lad 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, u I shall not die, but live, and 
 declare the works of the Lord." 
 
 I rose up and looked around towards the window. Every- 
 thing 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 gray 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 of any 
 music, and filled it with an unspeakable rapture of calm and peace. 
 
 So I rose and dressed, and said my morning prayers, looking 
 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 279 
 
 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 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, count- 
 ing 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 tho attempt at the cheering word his
 
 280 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 quivering lips failed altogether, and with one passionate sob he 
 sought to withdraw his hand from her 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 
 weep like a child. 
 
 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 be- 
 tween 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 refresh- 
 ing drink to her, and to hear her dear voice murmur thanks, or 
 perhaps some sweet old verses from her beloved George Herbert ! 
 
 Then those delicious days of her gradually returning strength ! 
 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 bringing a new delight ; only the life whose precious 
 tide was slowly rising thus from point to point, was no uncon- 
 scious flood of natural growth — it was Mother's life ! 
 
 Then that first Sunday when she was lifted into her own little
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 281 
 
 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 made 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 sunny Sunday, across the corn-fields, with the little 
 quiet waves plashing 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. 
 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!" 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
 
 282 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 
 
 hymn, — 
 
 "0 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 have 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, —
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 283 
 
 "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 hath opened Mercy's door : 
 Justified through 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 in 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 1 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.
 
 284 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 It's a great mercy for roe that I've fallen on 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 defi- 
 ance, 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 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, she 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,
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 285 
 
 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 that 
 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 in- 
 stead 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 to hide 
 the tears, like an old Spartan as she is, my whole 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 re- 
 membered 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 nu 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 1 " I said. 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Kitty," said Betty, " it do sound cruel like it. 
 And I suppose the Almighty must allow folks to say things m
 
 286 DIARY OF MBS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 their own way ; and if it isn't as plain as might be, — it isn't 
 given to every one to speak plain, — and the Lord can under- 
 stand, — 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 lisp- 
 ings, 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, 
 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 gray 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 he 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 Al- 
 mighty, 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 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 thunderstorm. The en- 
 forced 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 clay Mother and I were sitting sewing at the great win- 
 dow 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 farthest 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 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.
 
 288 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 to- 
 gether. 
 
 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 
 court-yard, 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 289 
 
 her belief such hurry-scurry was most times only a cover for 
 their own dawdling. 
 
 "Bless your heart, Mi*s. 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 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 
 
 19
 
 290 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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's letter, which in my excitement 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 thus be in London in less than a week, and have besides 
 the great comfort of making the journey alone, not exposed to 
 the questions or prying looks of fellow-passengers. 
 
 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, insist- 
 ing 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, with- 
 out pausing a moment in word or work so as to give me a 
 chance of interrupting her : — 
 
 " 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. However, 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 fine burying to me, any more than to the rich man 
 in the Bible? Fine buryings won't keep sinners out of the fire,
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 291 
 
 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 '11 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. 
 
 Mother insisted on coming down to breakfast with us, and 
 as 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 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
 
 292 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 feel hopeless about this. I have a persuasion not like persuad- 
 ing 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 before 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 coach- 
 men 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 gentle- 
 man 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 infec- 
 tion of our eagerness ! until, for their sakes, and for the sake of 
 greater speed in the long run, we had rather to restrain them 
 than to 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 were riding down a 
 steep, stony hill in a narrow lane, when we saw before us a 
 gentleman, in a 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, and 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 293 
 
 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 on 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 low excitement, and above them rose a 
 dreadful 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 1 " 
 
 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 con- 
 verted her into an invalid who must be kept quiet, and left 
 Cousin Evelyn and me free for each other.
 
 294 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 Evelyn explained everything to me, as Uncle Beauchamp did 
 to Father. 
 
 Jack was in Newgate ; not in the debtor's side, but worse. 
 
 He had taken some money from that Company, only antici- 
 pating his salary, he said, by a few weeks, and, of course, in- 
 tending 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 1 " 
 
 " It may be anything, or it may be nothing," she said, avoid- 
 ing 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 feel- 
 ings. 
 
 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 clumsy keys, the careful locking behind us of rever- 
 berating 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 as I 
 might, to do anything but mentally repeat words without mean- 
 ing and count the window-bars and chimney-stacks ; so that 
 when at last Father came, and I was led into Jack's cell and
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 295 
 
 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, he added 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 
 then 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 if it's on the point of 
 beginning; for, to confess the truth, they were rather a low 
 money -making set after all in 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 men- 
 tion 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
 
 296 DIARY OF MBS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 1 
 
 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 per- 
 suade 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 the Methodists 
 came into the world, that I cannot make out anybody or any- 
 thing." 
 
 So the next morning early I was admitted to Jack's cell. 
 
 "Uncle Beauchamp says you and the lawyers cannot under- 
 stand 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 He, 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 1 " 
 
 " Of course, I couldn't swear to a lie, Kitty. What do you 
 mean 1 "
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 297 
 
 " Thank God ! " 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 me and said very gravely, " Are you sur- 
 prised, Kitty, that I will not tell a falsehood — that I will not 
 perjure myself 1 Did you think I would ? Did you think be- 
 cause I had anticipated a few days the salary due to me from a 
 set of beggarly trades-fellows, that I could tell a deliberate lie, 
 and take a false oath ! " 
 
 "O Jack," I said, hiding my face in my hands, "how could 
 I tell! since you took what did not belong to you 1 ? It troubled 
 us so much ! " 
 
 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 said, kneeling beside him. " You 
 xoill 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, yoxi feel 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
 
 298 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 (and I was full of hopes, for there was prayer, and I had thought 
 of a plan), I think I shall never know a 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 him- 
 self" 1 — that the temptation to a sin foreign 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 Posthlethwaite, 
 Esq., Secretary of the Original Peruvian Mining Company. 
 
 Mr. Posthlethwaite 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 indescrib- 
 able 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 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."
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 299 
 
 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 pres- 
 sure, 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, — 
 
 " These are the Governors, Mr. Posthlethwaite ; 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 in- 
 timate friends." 
 
 The manner of the Secretary changed again. " Lord Clin- 
 ton," 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,' 1 said Evelyn coolly, fixing her calm, pene- 
 trating eyes on him. 
 
 He winced evidently. 
 
 " Lord Clinton," he said, pressing his forefinger on his fore- 
 head, as if endeavouring to recollect something ; " ah, I re- 
 member, there was a little mistake there, a little mistake which,
 
 300 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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. Posthle- 
 thwaite, 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. Posthlethwaite,'' 
 said Evelyn quietly. " I will recommend these gentlemen," she 
 continued very deliberately, "who, you say, 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 you will see what can be 
 done, / will not. You will let us know to-morrow." 
 
 And she swept out of the room, Mr. Posthlethwaite 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 be- 
 wildered. 
 
 "The end of what ?" said Evelyn. 
 
 " Of this terrible affair of Jack's," I said.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 301 
 
 " I cannot see quite so far as that, sweet little cousin," she 
 said ; " but I think I see the end of Mr. Posthlethwaite 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?" 
 
 " 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 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 en- 
 counter," he said, patting 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. Posthlethwaite ; 
 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. Posthlethwaite 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, —
 
 302 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 " 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 do 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 your- 
 self 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 !" 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." 
 
 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 303 
 
 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 
 Posthlethwaite, 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 Told, — 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 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 every- 
 thing 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 school in 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
 
 304 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 was, 'I was sick and in prison, and ye visited me 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 ad- 
 mittance. 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 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 eccle- 
 siastical, 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 
 * Stevens' "History of Methodism."
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 305 
 
 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 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 libera- 
 tion could be arranged, and very precious days they were to 
 him. Silas Told saw him often, patiently encountering his vari- 
 able 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 dis- 
 comfort 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 here- 
 after, but quite beyond all hope of restoration to any life 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 steadilv growing: con- 
 viction of his own moral weakness, and a steadily growing con- 
 
 20
 
 306 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 fidence in the forgiveness and the strengthening power of God, 
 until on the day that he came out, when lie 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 tts 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 suspicion and distrust 
 which doing wrong necessarily brings on people are a cold at- 
 mosphere for anything good to grow in. If he smiled, for in- 
 stance, Aunt Henderson was apt to think him impenitent. If 
 he was grave, 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 mat- 
 ters, to our amazement the footman quietly ushered in " Mr. 
 Spencer."
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 307 
 
 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 wonderful 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 a help to him, which makes 
 it plain that it must 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.
 
 308 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 In order to complete these arrangements we spent some days 
 at Hackney. Aunt Henderson informed me, with a grim satis- 
 faction, that Uncle Henderson's demure nephew had disappeared 
 with a considerable sum of money. The loss of property was 
 evidently more than compensated by the fulfilment of prophecy, 
 and by the manifest discomfiture of Calvinistic doctrine in the 
 person of her Presbyterian foe. 
 
 Uncle Henderson abandoned that field of controversy alto- 
 gether ; 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 excep- 
 tions, 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 his 
 way, 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 com- 
 fort 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 for- 
 given 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 that 
 conversion was not a closed door between us and God, but 
 an open door through which I must go 1 Well, I was a long 
 while getting to understand that, but I think I am beginning 
 now."
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 309 
 
 Those 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 con- 
 duct 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 de- 
 linquencies and misbeliefs her controversial weapons might have 
 rusted on the shelf. 
 
 When I 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 Beauchamp 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 Sister Trevylyan among you ; and I'd 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 feel it quite a burden 
 off my mind." 
 
 I could not help inwardly trembling at the thought of the 
 snail's broth, the severe medical discipline, and the collisions 
 that must inevitably occur in such a case between Aunt Hender- 
 son 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
 
 310 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 from 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 he is not going alone. And by that, we 
 know well, she does not only 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. 
 
 Because, a few days after our return, we had a visit from 
 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 wreck- 
 ing and poaching, aversion to paying tithes, their Cornish dia- 
 lect, 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 Lon-
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 311 
 
 don. He had spoken to the patron, who, considering the cir- 
 cumstances, 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 beforehand, which sometimes 
 makes it worse afterwards. 
 
 The ship they sailed in is an old one. I 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 1 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 minding them — " Betty, it is no better than the 
 heathens to heed such fancies. We must open our hearts wide
 
 3 1 2 DIA R Y OF MliS. KI TTY THE I ' 71 1 - 1 V. 
 
 to the Biblf, and lei 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 1 Re- 
 member, prayer was stronger even than St. Paul's forebodings ; 
 for he said he ' perceived that the voyage would be with much 
 hurt 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 old Jew. 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 sink- 
 ing 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 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 1 He can send His angels, and one of His angels is
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 313 
 
 stronger than all the storms on the ocean ; or He can stretch 
 out His hand, and then 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 1 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 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 par- 
 ticular at the best of times ; but I'd be content to sit a helpless 
 cripple all the rest of my life hi the chimney-corner and watch 
 Roger, poor fool, or that poor clumsy 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 
 
 |iT is now two months since Hugh and Jack left us. 
 We have had letters, full of hope and promise ; 
 and all the weight of forebodings which settled 
 down on me in 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 and shine my cares away. 
 
 I think the delight of seeing new things is nothing compared 
 to the delight of seeing old things grow to a new beauty, in a 
 new season, or in the light of a new joy, — that is, living things, 
 things of God's making. I can never fancy taking half the 
 pleasure in seeing all the wonderful forests Hugh writes about 
 in the New "World that I do in seeing those very same dear old 
 elms, that have bent down over me from my childhood, wake 
 up, branch by branch, and twig by twig, and spread their deli- 
 cate leaves in the air till they are thick enough to hide in deep 
 bowers of shade the soft nest those two happy thrushes have 
 been so busy building and lining, and where the mate is now 
 singing in low tender tones, while the mother-bird broods over 
 her nest, and the gentle winds rock the cradle. 
 
 Those American forests, with their brilliant climbing-plants, 
 would be only a picture to me, — a glorious picture, indeed, 
 painted by God's hand, but wanting the sweet perfume of time 
 and home which breathes to me from every blossom of the 
 hawthorn under my chamber window.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 315 
 
 And now there is another new light on all the clear familiar 
 old places ; for Hugh is coming back so soon, so soon ! And 
 we are to work together all our lives for the good and happi- 
 ness 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 everything which seems 
 to thrill the heart with the conscious presence of 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 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 places says, God has been here. 
 But the life in the lowliest living thing — in the tiniest moss 
 which puts forth a fresh green stem to-day — in the little leaf 
 which has burst the gummy casing in which it was encased 
 yesterday, and flutters in the air and sun to-day, 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 burst- 
 ing up into the sunshine — life in its lowliest development says 
 not, God has been here, but God is here; not only "The Master's 
 hand has been on us ; do you not see the perfection of His 
 work 1 ?" but "The life of the Life-giver is breathing through us; 
 do you not feel the joy of His presence?" and that seems to me 
 to go much deeper into the heart. 
 
 I was sitting to-day by the little well-spring in our 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 that 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 I gather the first 
 nosegay there every year for Mother ; and so deep and hallowed 
 is the quiet, that, as a child, I used often to fancy it must be
 
 316 DIARY OF MBS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 something more than \\ ind and water which made the Mowers 
 quiver and the leaves flutter, as if with the touch of a hand they 
 loved ; and, as it is, I often 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 toe 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 hands can always do so much better ? 
 
 But however that may be, Hugh says, matters comparatively 
 little; because nothing is done in God's world by dead laws 
 made long ago, nor by lifeless machinery set going long ago, 
 and generally superintended from a distance. Everywhere the 
 agency is living, not mechanical ; whether the work of happy 
 ministering spirits, or of the one Living Presence, which is better 
 and dearer and nearer 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 those poor limited thoughts of ours into heaven 
 that makes half the difficulties, if not all, in those 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 irrevocable title-deeds • for- 
 getting that deeds and decrees are of value to us simply because 
 the people who make them may die or change. 
 
 But 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, and 
 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
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 317 
 
 some sentence, some irrevocable decision, to build on. God 
 gives us no such poor abstractions to rest on apart from Him. 
 His promises 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?" 
 
 If the cold heart, craving security against itself, asks, " But 
 can / pluck myself out of Thy hand? Can I 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, I keep — abide in Me." If we seek one promise to a past 
 faith, one word of encouragement to any except those who are 
 turning to God, we may look through the Bible in vain. Turn 
 to God, all is light ; turn from Him, all is shade. God gives no 
 promises except to faith, and faith in exercise. 
 
 But if the trembling, clinging heart asks, weeping, the same 
 question, " Can I ever tear myself from Thy hand ? can I ever 
 leave Thee?" it is still the same answer, though in a different 
 tone, the tone of tenderest pity — " Abide in Me ; / love, I keep." 
 To strong faith this is full and absolute assurance. To feeble 
 faith no stronger assurance can be given. If all the ingenuity 
 of all the divines and lawyers in the world were taxed to find 
 a formula stating in abstract terms the security of a believer, 
 despondency would be sure to find some flaw to exclude itself. 
 Therefore I think God takes another way, and drives the 
 trembling, doubting heart, through the very destitution of 
 security, to Himself ; to the security which is safety, whether 
 it is felt 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
 
 318 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 in our past, or anything even in His promises, apart from Him- 
 
 self. " Communion with God," Mother said, " is the end and 
 
 object of redemption. ' Thou hast redeemed us to God by Thy 
 
 blood.' And God loves us too much to suffer that anything 
 
 shall be a substitute for prayer, for the communion of the soul 
 
 with Himself." 
 
 + * * * * 
 
 It seems that, during our absence in London, when Betty 
 and Mother were left alone together, they had many discussions. 
 At first these were at times rather hot and 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 
 forget something Betty said to me about assurance and the 
 witness of the Spirit, when I was ill." So at last, one evening 
 after their reading, Mother had the conversation which she thus 
 related to me : — 
 
 They had been reading the eighth chapter of the Romans, 
 and had stopped at the verses, "There is therefore now no 
 condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus," and " The 
 Spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children 
 of God." Betty told Mother what she had told me before, — 
 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 evening she saw the burden of her sin laid on her Saviour, 
 so that all her heart suddenly overflowed with gratitude, and 
 love, and peace. She felt that He had borne her sins, and that 
 they were borne away, and that she was forgiven. 
 
 Mother replied that she had more than once felt her heart
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 319 
 
 meit into thankfulness and joy when she had looked at the 
 Cross, but that afterwards the recollection of her sins had 
 weighed her down again, and she thought the utmost she could 
 ever hope for was that at last hope might overbalance fear, 
 God's mercy outweigh her sins, and that so, perhaps on her 
 deathbed, a trembling hope might be vouchsafed her that she 
 might depart in peace. She did not deny that such an assur- 
 ance as Betty spoke of might be given to some, but she believed 
 it was to great saints or to people with very strong faith. At 
 all events, she had never thought it could be anything but pre- 
 sumption for her to expect it. 
 
 But Betty said she did not think the Almighty meant His 
 children to creep through the world with a rope round their 
 necks, as if they were never sure of not being condemned at 
 last. If God Almighty's service was to be such a wisht thing 
 as that, she did not think many would be drawn to it. And she 
 was sure no father with a heart in him would treat the worst 
 child who wanted to become better in such a way, much less 
 the Lord. 
 
 " But," said Mother, " the tenderest parent can see his child 
 suffer anything if it is for the child's good. The more God 
 loves us the more He will bear to be grieved with our griefs, if 
 it is to end in our joy. And since we are such wilful and re- 
 bellious children, it may be safer for us to wait for our pardon 
 until we are safe from sinning any more." 
 
 " That wasn't your way, nor Master's, leastways Missis'," said 
 Betty. 
 
 "Better perhaps if it had," replied Mother, thinking mourn- 
 fully of Jack. 
 
 " Well, Missis," said Betty, " all I know is I couldn't work, 
 nor I wouldn't, for a master who had no way of keeping his 
 house right, but spying on the men and maidens like a jailer, 
 and never dropping them a good word or a smile for fear they 
 should forget their places. Even the beasts feel the difference,
 
 320 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 poor fools. And as to Master Jack," she added in a softened, 
 faltering voice, " I can't deny that if you and Master were to 
 treat him like a good-for-nought, and never give him a kind 
 look nor a word of welcome, but sit in the Hall, like judges, 
 for him to come and bow and make fine speeches before you, 
 and then send him to take his meat along with Roger and me 
 in the kitchen, if I were Master Jack I'd run away again for 
 good ; and as to me, I'd take myself off in no time ; " and Betty 
 all but cried at her own picture, when a new view of the matter 
 struck her, and she broke into a smile. " Well, Missis, what 
 an old fool I be to think of you and Master setting up play- 
 acting like that. Why, any one would see through it fast 
 enough. Roger, himself, poor innocent, would wait, laughing 
 in himself, to see what was to come next ; and the very dog 
 would see through it, and 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, and before you or Master could say one of your 
 fine improving speeches, he'd be at your feet, Missis, — he'd be 
 on your heart, and you'd be sobbing your heart out over him 
 for joy." 
 
 Mother made no reply for some little time, and Betty resumed 
 in a low voice, — 
 
 " And God Almighty is a sight better than that. The father 
 in the Bible didn't sit in the house waiting for the son to come 
 back, and making up faces and speeches to make him feel what 
 a fool he had been. His only fear was that the poor foolish 
 lad would be too ashamed to come. He was watching all the 
 while from the door, and the moment he saw him he ran to 
 meet him, that they might come back together, that every soul 
 in the house might see the poor fellow was welcome. He 
 stopped the poor speech the lad had made up in the foreign 
 parts with kisses, so that he never got through it, and fondled 
 him as if he had been his mother more than his father, and set
 
 DIARY OF MBS. KITTY TBEVYLYAN. 321 
 
 all the men and maidens to work, and then set them to feasting 
 and dancing and merry-making, as if it had been a wedding or 
 a christening, instead of a poor wild lad creeping back home 
 for a bit of bread, with scarce a rag on his back nor a shoe to 
 his feet. He wasn't afraid the poor boy would make himself 
 too much at home. He couldn't do enough like to make him 
 feel he was at home; and the Lord says that's how the Almighty 
 feels when one of us comes back to Him. And He knows the 
 inside of the Father's house," concluded Betty, " which is more 
 than any of us do yet awhile." 
 
 Mother admitted that the parable of the prodigal son did 
 indeed show quite plainly God's joy in receiving the penitent 
 sinner. But how were we to know we were penitent ? It was 
 so easy to deceive ourselves, to persuade ourselves into anything 
 we wished. 
 
 "Well, Missis," said Betty, "I didn't find it so easy; the 
 more I wished it the less I felt I could get it." 
 
 Some people, sincere and truthful Christian people, might 
 feel that, Mother admitted, people who were reserved and 
 truthful with themselves ; but who could answer for the de- 
 lusions into which excitable sanguine people might work them- 
 selves if they Avere told that the beginning of religion was to 
 feel that their sins were forgiven 1 
 
 " Of course some folks will deceive themselves," said Betty. 
 "Some folks always will. The apostles couldn't keep them 
 from it. But the warnings of the apostles even to such always 
 ended, not with ' go away,' but ' come back ; ' and it may give 
 folks a better chance of turning right altogether at last if their 
 faces have been turned the right way only for a few hours. It's 
 my belief folks are more easily got to try again if they've had 
 but a glimpse of what a terrible thing sin is, and what joy 
 God can give, than if they'd lived all their lives without having 
 a thought beyond the brutes, and doing everything worse than 
 the beasts. But," concluded Betty, "I can't be sure, Missis. 
 
 21
 
 322 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 that if they don't turn right in the end it won't be worse for 
 them. And I think the apostle Paul felt the same." 
 
 Mother returned to the point, — How was any one to know 
 the false joy from the true 1 
 
 And to that all Betty could say was, — 
 
 " Well, Missis, I can't say I think folks can know unless they 
 try. As far as I know it's a kind of joy that makes you ready 
 to let all the world trample on you and never mind a bit. It's 
 a joy that makes you feel as if you could forgive even your 
 greatest enemy, and indeed as if no one could do anything so 
 hurtful to you as to be worth calling an enemy, because if they 
 could only feel what you feel, they would be like your brothers 
 at once. It's a joy that lifts you above all the joys of the world 
 as if they were poor forgotten dreams, and makes you ready to 
 stoop beneath any burden or trouble in the world, because of 
 the hand that fits on the yoke. It's a joy that makes you feel 
 lower than the lowest upon earth, because you've been forgetting 
 and neglecting Him who died for you; and it's a joy that makes 
 you feel higher than all the kings of the world, because He loves 
 you ; and it's a joy the whole world cannot take away, but the 
 least puff of pride or breath of sin can dim and soil and stain. 
 If we lived in it always we should be as meek as lambs, and as 
 busy as bees, and as happy as angels, and as brave as Master, 
 and as kind, Missis, my dear, as you : and when we lose it 
 there's nothing for us but to go back where we found it, to the 
 Lord who won it, to the Almighty who gave it. For we're as 
 weak as Samson with his hair shorn without it, and as strong 
 as Samson when he took up the city gates when we've got it ; 
 and though it's never to be found by looking for it, it's always 
 to be found by looking for the Lord. For when the Almighty 
 calls us to forsake the world for Him here and now, do you 
 think He has nothing better than the world to give us here 
 and now 1 And," she concluded, " if we're always to be 
 climbing up the rock out of the waves ourselves, and never sure
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 323 
 
 we're on it, how are we to turn and have our hands free to help 
 the rest who are still clinging to the wreck or buffeting the 
 breakers 1 " 
 
 " And what did you say next, Mother 1 " I asked. 
 
 " I said nothing to Betty," Mother replied. ;< I went up into 
 the little porch-closet, Kitty, and knelt down and prayed God 
 to teach me." 
 
 " And then, 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 to us, and 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 receive it, and which keeps the promise ; a religion 
 which speaks not only of a past creation, finished and made, 
 and very good, but of a living present Creator and Father, 
 creating now and living now ; not only of the past finished 
 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 ? 
 
 " 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 awoke with these words of good Mr. Herbert's 
 singing 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
 
 324 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 time his return is delayed ; and not to let the intervening days 
 be merely a kind of waste border country between two regions 
 of life, but to fill them with their own work, which, no doubt, 
 if I ask God, He will give me to do. 
 
 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 laborious and rather 
 uncertain method of gaining information or edification. This 
 evening he came for the first time, and with some hesitation the 
 chief reason for this desire of improvement came out. He has 
 contrived to collect a few of the idle boys of the parish on Sun- 
 day afternoon, when there is no service, to teach them reading 
 and singing, and the attempt to help others has taught him his 
 own deficiencies. 
 
 This accounts for the sounds Father and I heard issuing from 
 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 few, and to 
 wander with no very clear purpose or connection with each 
 other ; but after such intervals Toby's voice was heard again 
 like a captain's collecting his scattered forces, 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 instruction in music in a 
 humble way, such as I can give, might not be useless to Toby 
 if he is to be choir-leader as well as schoolmaster. 
 
 "More than that, Mrs. Kitty," said Betty, "Toby Treffry is 
 appointed local preacher through our district." 
 ' This announcement was made as Betty was taking away the 
 supper, and the demand on Mother's faith in Methodist arrange- 
 ments was more than it could stand.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 325 
 
 " Toby a preacher, when he can scarcely read ! " 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, poor soul. There be things seen in the depths Toby's 
 been taken through, not written in any spelling-book I ever 
 see." 
 
 " But whatever the profit may be to others," said Mother, 
 " it must certainly be dangerous to Toby himself to set him- 
 self up to teach when he has so much to learn." 
 
 " Well, Missis," said Betty respectfully, but very determinedly, 
 " it seems to me, if folks wait to teach till they've no more to 
 learn, they may wait till doomsday. And more than that, the 
 folks that do set up to teach because they've done learning are 
 most times mortal dull teachers. Nothing comes so fresh, in 
 my opinion, as a lesson the teacher himself learned yesterday 
 from the Almighty. However, Toby's not set himself up to 
 teach, at any rate ; folks found they were the better for what 
 he'd got to say up to class, and so do I, and they would make 
 him speak to them, so that he couldn't help preaching, and that's 
 the end of it." 
 
 " An audience that xoill listen is certainly a good beginning 
 for a preacher," remarked Father. " I would not object to a 
 little more of the same test ; and I suppose Toby's salary is not 
 very great." 
 
 "Well," replied Betty dryly, "Toby's pay, and most of the 
 local preachers', is most times the wrong way, as far as this 
 world goes. He walks often ten and twenty miles to his preach- 
 ing, and when it rains he's got to preach in his wet things, and 
 sit in them till they are dry, which is all very well when folks 
 are young, but can't last always. As far as I can see, Toby's 
 pay is weary bones now, and is like to be rheumatism when he's 
 old. But he's content, sure enough, and well he may be, and 
 the rest of them too. They've got good part of the pay they 
 look for now, and all the rest well kept for them."
 
 326 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 But when I afterwards questioned Toby himself about his 
 expenses and his self-denying labours, he coloured and stam- 
 mered very little like a man accustomed to public speaking; 
 but at last he said, " They've only taken me on trial for a year, 
 Mrs. Kitty ; and as to the fay, the times I have alone in my 
 walks, thinking of the Lord and his goodness and all I've got to 
 tell them, are pay enough for a prince, let alone the joy of seeing 
 the folks' hearts melted by the words, and the hope of meeting 
 them and thanking the Lord all together, by-and-by." 
 
 These last weeks have been full of events. Uncle Beauchamp 
 died rather suddenly two months since. The shock brought a 
 slight attack of paralysis on Aunt Beauchamp, which has dis- 
 abled her from entering any more into society. 
 
 Cousin Evelyn is left in possession of a large fortune, be- 
 queathed to 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, if convenient. Aunt Beauchamp, in her feeble 
 health, keeps recurring, like a sick child, to a promise she says 
 Mother made her of coming to nurse her if ever she should be 
 ill. And since it is impossible for Mother to leave home, the 
 doctors think, (Evelyn writes,) that, difficult as the journey is, 
 the most probable chance of recovery is for her mother to 
 come at least for a little while to us. Mother's tender, gentle 
 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 lady who, she has heard, 
 paints her face as 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 perhaps (she admits) there's 
 some comfort even in such an upset as this, for such sights and 
 sounds might have boded worse.
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 327 
 
 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 Mrs. Sims is entirely engrossed with her mistress, 
 that my poor Aunt has relinquished the rouge, and that in 
 a very short time the whole party are to emigrate to the Par- 
 sonage. 
 
 For Cousin Evelyn has bought the next presentation of the 
 living for Hugh, for which she says no thanks are due, as she 
 intends 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 and restoring the whole fallen 
 side of the old court, in which are situated the rooms formerly 
 appropriated to our new home. 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 mull- 
 ions only need to be repaired here and there. The chief altera- 
 tions are the replacing of broken floors and ceilings, the glazing 
 of the old windows, and the dethronement of Betty's poultry, 
 which from time immemorial have made their roost in the 
 deserted old chambers. 
 
 Already, under Evelyn's eager hastening, the work is advanc- 
 ing. And when Hugh comes back he will feel as if an en- 
 chanter's wand had been waved over the old place, so delight- 
 fully 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 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
 
 328 DIARY OF AIMS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 I love to see 
 Evelyn even better than anywhere else. The stroke, and the 
 bereavement, and the change of circumstances have brought a 
 vague feeling of irritation and helpless opposition into my poor 
 aunt's brain, very painful 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 repre- 
 sent itself to her as poor Evelyn's will. At times she blames 
 and reproves Evelyn as if she were a wilful child ; at other 
 times she weeps and wrings her hands, and entreats her, as if 
 she herself were the child and Evelyn the harsh parent, to be 
 allowed to do some impossible thing or other. 
 
 And Evelyn, so strong and commanding elsewhere, by that 
 sick-bed is tender and yielding, and patient with every sick 
 fancy. Now and then she is rewarded, after a paroxysm of 
 anger or fretfulness, with a few tender words of love and thanks, 
 as a gleam of clearer light breaks on the poor troubled brain. 
 And then it is always as to a little child Aunt Beauchamp 
 speaks to her, calling her old tender pet names, 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 seem to 
 exercise a soothing influence. 
 
 m 
 
 The time for Hugh's arrival is come. Any day may bring 
 us tidings of his vessel. 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 had fitted up with 
 every luxury her mother is accustomed to — china vases, and 
 images on gilded brackets, caskets of aromatic woods, soft 
 carpets, leopard and tiger skins, mirrors with little china cupids
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 329 
 
 peeping round at their own reflection from the garlanded frames, 
 everything to make her poor mother 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 flowers and books, 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 schoolroom 
 for the orphans, to whom the remaining rooms are devoted. 
 
 Every one of the little white beds for the orphans has its own 
 little dressing-table and washing apparatus, and chest of drawers, 
 and its tiny set of book-shelves. These are all alike. Evelyn 
 means to add by degrees little gifts of pictures or books, as she 
 learns the tastes of the little inmates. She wants to supply the 
 place of a home, as far as possible, to the children, not, she says, 
 by the assumption of names of relationships 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 total, or a thing in a store-house, but a 
 little person in a family. Her plan is to give each, 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. She intends also, whenever it is possible, 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 watch 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, " Mr. Wesley thinks riches the
 
 330 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 meanest of God's gifts ; but I do think they are a grand gift 
 when one is young and free. So few have wealth until their 
 wants and habits have so grown up to it that it is, after all, 
 only just what they want ; that is, not riches to them at all. 
 Now with me it is different. My tastes are as simple as pos- 
 sible. I have no pleasure in splendour, and no need for lux- 
 uries. 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 this 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 and enjoy 
 so much " — she continued, emphatically, " as to give up myself 
 and all I am and have, to helping, and cheering, and saving 
 the sorrowful, and neglected, and destitute, and lost people 
 around me, all my life long ; and leading them to feel all the 
 time that the love and help they found in me are only a little 
 trickling from the great fountain of the 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 light in her eyes and on her beaming face seemed, as I 
 looked at it, to make the glow of the sky seem a lifeless thing 
 in comparison. It came, I felt, from a Sun " unseen and 
 eternal," and the light was not sunset, but sunrise. 
 
 tT* -1^ tP 5|C 5ft 
 
 While Evelyn and I stood together by the sea-side that even- 
 ing, 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 the flying skir- 
 mishing parties sent to clear the way before the main forces of 
 a storm. 
 
 I felt terribly anxious ; and I knew every one felt I was, 
 because all through the evening they tried to keep up the con- 
 versation, and spoke eagerly of Evelyn's work at the Parsonage,
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 331 
 
 — of the work we were doing — of Father's old military days — 
 of any one, except Hugh — of anything, except the wind which 
 had now ceased to be gusty, and kept surging up the valley in 
 great waves, as regular and almost as strong as the billows it 
 had been urging on in its course, and whose salt spray it dashed 
 against the rattling windows, mingled with the great plashes of 
 the rain. 
 
 Evelyn wished me good-night in an easy, careless voice, 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 did in any common 
 anxiety. Only Father's voice had a faltering tenderness as he 
 came back from an exploration of the weather outside, and 
 said, as we separated for the night, — 
 
 " This storm is nothing sudden ; it cannot have taken any 
 good seaman by surprise. It has been brewing since yesterday 
 evening, and, no doubt, every one who knows this coast is 
 either far enough from it, or safe in port." 
 
 But, long afterwards, I heard Mother's closet door shut, and 
 low voices close what I felt had been an earnest parley, and 
 with every sense quickened as it was that night, I heard Evelyn's 
 soft step creep 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 to undress, 
 listening to the storm. 
 
 " Mrs. Kitty, my dear," she said with an 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 hearkening and gazing like that ; " and she began to un- 
 fasten my dress as when I was a child. " There's nothing folks 
 can't see and hear if they hearken in nights like this. I have 
 heard the wind screech, and moan, and scream in that way, I 
 could have sworn it had been folks in mortal trouble ; and in
 
 332 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 
 
 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 come bluntly out with her 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 1 His ship may not have left America yet, you know, or it 
 may be in port quite safe, close at home, close at home ! " 
 
 " It may, my dear, it may," she said ; " but it isn't maybe's 
 that'll comfort you, my lamb ; we must look to the Lord." 
 
 "I do," I said, "indeed I do. But He promises us no secu- 
 rity from danger now, — none from any danger, does He 1 " 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Kitty," she said, " I can't say I think He does. 
 But He promises to care ; and He tells us to trust ; and 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 great fights, 
 it's my belief, have got to be fought out alone with the Almighty. 
 And you'll find, when you kneel down and give yourself up to Him 
 heartily, that you don't want anymore promises than He has given 
 — not one. For all the words in the world end somewhere, and 
 leave something they cannot reach; but the love of the Lord ends 
 nowhere, but flows right down to the bottom of every trouble." 
 
 And when she had gone I did kneel down, and proved what 
 Betty said to be true. I proved that all possible promises are 
 included, comprehended, and absorbed by the one, " I will never 
 leave thee ! " that all hopes of deliverance are weak 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 my light and lie down in the
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 333 
 
 darkness, without terror, 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, 
 and the windows rattle, and the old house tremble to its foun- 
 dations ; yes, without terror, for the tones of an enemy's voice 
 had passed from the storm. I could take refuge beneath the 
 arm that wielded it — take refuge with God for me and mine. 
 
 And this was something to prove. For it would certainly 
 have been far easier to have been myself at sea by Hugh's side, 
 tossed helplessly, as I thought he might be, from the crest of 
 one wave to the trough of another, with the ship staggering in 
 every timber from the blows of the winds and waves, than to 
 be thus listening, sheltered and alone, to the surging of the winds 
 as they broke in the valley after spending their force on the sea. 
 
 In the morning Betty came to me as I was dressing, with 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 dis- 
 masted ship of British build, out of her course, and quite un- 
 manageable, making as fast as she could for the fatal rocks at 
 the entrance of his bay. He was going back to his cottage, with 
 one or two of his class, to pray for the crew ; and then they were 
 to keep watch on the points from which help was most possible, 
 ready to throw ropes, and offer any assistance they could. 
 
 None of us could rest in the house with such a catastrophe 
 at hand. Father and Roger went up on the cliffs to join the 
 old seamen and fishermen already watching there. Evelyn and 
 I tried to accompany them, but the wind would not let us 
 stand, and it was arranged that we, with Betty and Mother, 
 should remain in Toby's cottage, keeping 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.
 
 334 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TRETYLYAJY. 
 
 Dismasted, helpless, but full (we knew) of our countrymen, 
 driven on their own shores — the shores 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 was 
 made. 
 
 Then Toby came for an instant to the door, and shouted, 
 ■ • There is hope ! there is hope ! don't give over praying. She 
 is jammed in between two rocks. If she can hold together till 
 the ebb of the tide, there is hope." 
 
 A sob of relief broke from us all, and we knelt down to- 
 gether. But no one could utter a word. 
 
 Soon Toby came again. 
 
 ''They are making signals/' he said "We have made sig- 
 nals 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 around 
 him, to throw himself into the sea. We can see him from the 
 beach. "We could make them hear, if it wasn'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 of 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 strong." 
 
 And then, in a low tone, " He must know the coast. He is 
 climbing the slippery rocks by the only point where they can be 
 climbed — where blaster Hugh and I used to hunt for skills' nests." 
 
 He stopped, and his eye met mine. 
 
 •• Ah, 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 dis- 
 appeared. There was a shout among the seamen. Again an- 
 other. He had re-appeared above the waves. Once more he was
 
 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAX. 335 
 
 hidden. There was a long low groan among the seamen ; then a 
 terrible silence. "What happened in the next moments I never 
 saw. A mist came before my eves, blotting out sound and sight 
 
 And the next thing of "which I was conscious was waking up 
 in Toby's cortage, with my head on Mother's bosom, and seeing 
 some one stretched on Toby's little bed, drawn 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, slowly the 
 eyes opened, and met mine. And in an instant I was kneeling 
 beside Hugh ! 
 
 They had been chafing, and rubbing, and trying every means 
 of restoration, for an hour ; but it was only just before I re- 
 covered consciousness that the first gasp, the first pale flush of 
 colour, gave signs of returning life. But as I knelt beside him 
 his breast heaved slightly, his eyes opened again and resi 
 (with such rest !) on mine, and he rather breathed than said, 
 faint was his voice, " Are the rest saved ! " 
 
 And Toby said, '• They're all safe. The Lord bless you, 
 Master Hugh. The waves which dashed you a drowned man, 
 as we feared, on the beach, did not break the rope which bound 
 you to the wreck. One or two of the boldest 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 the deepest peace settled on his face. 
 
 And before night we were all kneeling beside him, the ship- 
 wrecked crew at the door, while in distinct though feeble words 
 he was thanking God, whose -'mercies are new every morning, 
 whose mercy endureth for ever." 
 
 That was the way in which God answered a thousand pre 
 at once. Life was given back to the perishing by Toby's fireside ;
 
 336 DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREYYLYAN. 
 
 and through his hands the wrecker's house of death became the 
 threshold of life ; the den of thieves became the house of prayer. 
 And Hugh was given back to me. That was the first service 
 in which Hugh led the prayers and praises of his parishioners. 
 A "prosperous journey had 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 with a nobler triumph than 
 if he had been convoyed by a fleet and greeted by a royal 
 salute ; cast on the beach a ship wrecked 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 accepted it as a token. 
 
 "When the storm of life is past, when we wake to our first 
 thankscnvincr service on the other shore, will there be such a 
 company of rescued men and women around us then, rescued 
 from wreck more hopeless, pouring out their hearts, not indeed 
 to us, but to Him who loved us and hath redeemed us to God by 
 His blood, not from hell to heaven only, but from sin to God 1 
 
 For these storms never cease on earth. And even when 
 Whitefield, and the Wesleys, and John Xelson, and Silas Told, 
 have passed from earth, and all the noble men and women who 
 work with them, rescuing wrecked souls from destruction, and 
 chafing 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 says,) but that with the storms God will send the 
 workmen for the work of rescue ; — 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.
 
 
 
 
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