Her delight in the child, instead of growing less, went on increasing
because of the _awe_, rather than _dread_ of having at last to give him up.
CHAPTER XIX.
Meanwhile the minister remained moody, apparently sunk in contemplation,
but in fact mostly brooding, and meditating neither form nor truth.
Sometimes he felt indeed as if he were losing altogether his power of
thinking--especially when, in the middle of the week, he sat down to find
something to say on the Sunday. He had greatly lost interest in the
questions that had occupied him while he was yet a student, and imagined
himself in preparation for what he called the ministry--never thinking how
one was to minister who had not yet learned to obey, and had never sought
anything but his own glorification! It was little wonder he should lose
interest in a profession, where all was but profession! What pleasure
could that man find in holy labour who, not indeed offered his stipend to
purchase the Holy Ghost, but offered all he knew of the Holy Ghost to
purchase popularity? No wonder he should find himself at length in lack of
talk to pay for his one thing needful! He had always been more or less
dependent on commentaries for the joint he provided--and even for the
cooking of it: was it any wonder that his guests should show less and less
appetite for his dinners?
The hungry sheep looked up and were not fed!
To have food to give them, he must think! To think, he must have peace! to
have peace, he must forget himself! to forget himself, he must repent, and
walk in the truth! to walk in the truth, he must love God and his
neighbour!--Even to have interest in the dry bone of criticism, which was
all he could find in his larder, he must broil it--and so burn away in the
slow fire of his intellect, now dull and damp enough from lack of noble
purpose, every scrap of meat left upon it! His last relation to his work,
his fondly cherished intellect, was departing from him, to leave him lord
of a dustheap! In the unsavoury mound he grubbed and nosed and scraped
dog-like, but could not uncover a single fragment that smelt of provender.
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