"Solomon M'Slime."
"Now, Darby," said he, having folded the letter enclosing his tender for Harman's farm, and handed, it to him, "now, that so much is despatched, I trust we may have a word or two upon a subject of still higher importance. How do you feel in a spiritual way?--Are your views as clear as ever?--are you supported--I mean inwardly, for that is the only true support after all?"
"Thrath, Mr. M'Slime, I'm afeard to spake, sir, for fraid I'd say either more or less than the truth."
"That is a good sign, Darby, but you must avoid profane swearing, which is a habit you contracted when in the bonds of iniquity; but you must reform it--or rather, grace will be given you to reform it."
"I hope so," replied Darby, "and that I'll still get a clearer knowledge of the truth, plaise Goodness."
Darby, as he uttered these words, would have given a trifle to have had M'Clutchy to look at. Little did Solomon suspect the truth to which his convert alluded.
"May it in charity be granted!" exclaimed Solomon, slightly twitching up his eyebrows. "But, Darby, will you be properly prepared on next Sabbath (D.V.) to bear strong testimony against error and idolatry?"
"Why, I'll do my best, sir," replied Darby, "and you know the best can do no more."
"Well, but you can faithfully say that you are utterly free from every taint of Popery."
"Faith, sir, I don't know that that would be altogether prudent. Did you never hear of the ould proverb, sir--not to throw out the dirty water till you get in the clane--I'm not sure that I have a sufficient grip of the new light yet," said Darby, falling unconsciously into his usual style of conversation, "but, I hope that by next Sunday, I'll be able to shine;--an', be me sowl, if I don't, sir, it'll be none o' my fawt--divil resave the purtier convert in Europe than I'll make when I come to know a little about it."
"Darby," said Solomon, impatiently, "this is really very trying to one so anxious for your spiritual welfare as I am. This awful swearing--I really fear that some of your light has been withdrawn since our last interview."
"Not at all unlikely," replied Darby; "but wid great submission, don't you think, sir, that two religions is betther than one?"
"How do you mean by adverting to such an impossibility?"
"Why, sir, suppose I kept the ould one, and joined this new reformation to it, wouldn't I have two chances instead o' one?"
"Darby," said Solomon, "avoid, or rather Pray that you may be enabled to avoid the enemy; for I fear he is leading you into a darker error.
I tell you--I say unto you--that you would be much better to have no religion than the Popish. You have reminded me of one proverb, suffer me to remind you of another; do you not know, to speak in a worldly figure, that an empty house is better than a bad tenant? why, I looked on you with pride, with a kind of and joy as one wilom I had wrestled for, and won from the enemy; but I fear you are elapsing."
"I hope in God sir," very gravely, "that you and he won't have to toss up for me; for I feel myself sometimes one thing, and sometimes the other."
"Ah!" replied Solomon, "I fear I must give you up, and in that case it will not be in my power to employ you in a very confidential matter, the management of which I imagined I could have entrusted to you.
That, however, cannot be now, as no one not amply provided with strong religious dispositions, could be relied on in it."
Darby, who, in fact, was playing M'Slime precisely as a skilful fisherman does his fish; who, in order to induce him the more eagerly to swallow the bait, pretends to withdraw it from his jaws, by which means it is certain to be gulped down, and the fish caught.
"Ah, sir," replied Darby, "I'm greatly afeared that every person like me must struggle with great temptations."
"That is an excellent observation," said Solomon; "and I do suppose, that since this desirable change took place in your heart, you must have been woefully beset."
"Never suffered so much in my life," replied the other. "Now there's your two beautiful tracts, and may I never die in sin--I hope, sir, there's no great harm in that oath?
"No great harm but you had better omit it, however--it smacks of sin and superstition."
"Well, sir--may I never--I beg pardon--but any how, the truth is, that ever since I tuck to readin' them, I feel myself gettin' as dishonest as if the devil--"
"Do not name him so, Darby--it is profane; say the enemy, or Satan, or the tempter."
"As if the whole three o' them, then, war at my elbow. Why, for the last three or four days, I may say, they have cleared me out as clane of honesty as the black boy himself, and it is worse I am gettin'. Now, sir, it stands to sense, that that's temptation."
"Unquestionably; and my great hope and consolation is, that you yourself are conscious of it. All you have to do now, is to pray unceasingly--wrestle in prayer, and you will ultimately triumph. Sing spiritual songs, too; read my tracts with attention; and, in short, if you resist the dev--hem--Satan, they will flee from you. Give that letter to Mr. M'Clutchy, and let me see you on the day after to-morrow--like a giant refreshed with new strength."
"Well, now," said Darby, assuming a more serious look--"do you know, sir, that I think your words have put new strength into me. Somehow I feel as if there was a load removed from me. May the mother of heaven--hem--I do, sir; and now, as a proof of it, I wouldn't feel justified, sir, in leaving you, widout sayin' a word or two about the same M'Clutchy, who, between you and me--but I hope it won't go farther, sir?"
"I don't think it would be permitted to me to betray confidence--I humbly think so. Be not afraid, but speak."
"Why, sir, he has got a dirty trick of speakin' disrespectfully of you behind your back."
"Human weakness, Darby! poor profligate man! Proceed, what does he say?"
"Why, sir, if it 'ud be agreeable to you, I'd rather not be goin' over it."
"We should know our friends from our enemies, O'Drive; but I forgive him, and shall earnestly pray for him this night. What did he say?"
"Why he said, sir--verily, thin, I'm ashamed to say it."
"Did he speak only of myself?" inquired Solomon, with something like a slight, but repressed appearance of alarm.
"Oh, of nobody else, sir. Well, then, he said, sir--but sure I'm only repatin' his wicked words--he said, sir, that if you were cut up into the size of snipe shot, there would be as much roguery in the least grain of you, as would corrupt a nation of pickpockets."
"Poor man! I forgive him. Do you not see me smile, Darby?"
"I do, indeed, sir."
"Well, that is a smile of forgiveness--of pure Christian forgiveness--free from the slightest taint of human infirmity. I am given to feel this delightful state of mind at the present moment--may He be praised!--proceed."
"It is a blessed state, sir, and as you can bear it--and as I can trust you, what I could not him--I will go on:--" he said, "besides, sir, that your example had made the ould boy himself a worse boy now than he had ever been before he ever knew you I--that in temptin' you, he got new dodges of wickedness that he was never up to till he met you, and that he's now receivin' lessons from you in the shape of a convartin'
parson."
"Ah! well!--I see, I see--that is an unchristian allusion to my recent intercourse with the Rev. Phineas Lucre, the respected and highly connected rector of Castle Cumber, and his nephew, the Rev. Boanerges Frothwell, both of whom take a deep interest in the New Reformation movement which is now so graciously advancing. However, I shall pray for that man this night."
"Sir, I feel much relieved; I'm a changed man widin these few minutes, I may say--but what, afther all, is aquil to a good example? I feel, sir, as if a strong hatred of idolaphry was comin' an me."
"Idolatry, you mean, Darby?"
"Yes, sir, that's what I mean."
"Where is that letter of Mr. M'Clutchy's--oh, I have it. Well, Darby,"
said M'Slime, quietly changing it for another, "here it is; now, do you see how I commit that letter to the flames?" placing M'Clutchy's under the side of a brief; "and even as the flames die away before your eyes, so dies away--not my resentment, Darby, for none do I entertain against him--but the memory of his offensive expressions."
"Sir," said Darby, "this is wonderful! I often heard of religion and forgiveness of injuries, but antil this day I never saw them in their thrue colors. The day after to-morrow I'm to call, sir?"
"The day after to-morrow."
"Well, sir, may the Holy Virgin this day--och, indeed I do not know what I'm sayin' sir--Religion! well if that's not religion what is or can be?
Good mornin' sir."