My boy, do the
will of God--that is, what you know or believe to be right, and fear
nothing."
I never forgot the lesson. But my readers must not think that my
father often talked like this. He was not at all favourable to much
talk about religion. He used to say that much talk prevented much
thought, and talk without thought was bad. Therefore it was for the
most part only upon extraordinary occasions, of which this is an
example, that he spoke of the deep simplicities of that faith in God
which was the very root of his conscious life.
He was silent after this utterance, which lasted longer than I have
represented, although unbroken, I believe, by any remark of mine. Full
of inward repose, I fell asleep in his arms.
When I awoke I found myself very cold. Then I became aware that my
father was asleep, and for the first time began to be uneasy. It was
not because of the cold: that was not at all unendurable; it was that
while the night lay awful in white silence about me, while the wind
was moaning outside, and blowing long thin currents through the peat
walls around me, while our warm home lay far away, and I could not
tell how many hours of cold darkness had yet to pass before we could
set out to find it,--it was not all these things together, but that,
in the midst of all these, I was awake and my father slept. I could
easily have waked him, but I was not selfish enough for that: I sat
still and shivered and felt very dreary.
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