“It is God who must teach and not me,” said the dying man. “He has other instruments--and you must seek Him for yourself, and let Him reveal His will to you. If you are faithful to God’s service, He will relieve you of your doubts,” said Arthur, who did not understand his friend’s mind, but even at that solemn moment looked at him with a perplexed mixture of disapproval and compassion. And thus the silence fell again like a curtain over the room, and once more it became a picture faintly painted on the darkness, faintly relieved and lighted up by touches of growing light, till at length the morning came in full and fair, finding out as with a sudden surprise the ghostly face on the pillow, with its great eyes closed in disturbed sleep, and by the bedside another face scarcely less motionless, the face of the man who was no unbeliever, but whose heart longed to know and see what others were content, in vague generalities to tell of, and say they believed. This was one of the conversations held in the dead of night in Meredith’s room. Next evening it was Colin, reluctantly permitted by his faithful guardian to share this labour, who took the watcher’s place; and then the two young men, who were so near of an age, but whose prospects were so strangely different, talked to each other after a different fashion. Both at the beginning of their career, and with incalculable futures before them, it was natural they should discuss the objects and purposes of life, upon which Meredith, who thought himself matured by the approach of death, had, as he imagined, so much advantage over his friend, who was not going to die. “I remember once thinking as you do,” said the dying man. “The world looked so beautiful! No man ever loved its vanities and its pomp more than I. I shudder sometimes to think what would have become of me if God had left me to myself--but He was more merciful. I see things in their true light now.” “You will have a great advantage over us,” said Colin, trying to smile; “for you will always know the nature of our occupations, while yours will be a mystery to us. But we can be friends all the same. As for me, I shall not have many pomps and vanities to distract me; a poor man’s son, and a Scotch minister does not fall in the way of such temptations.” “There are temptations to worldliness in every sphere,” said Meredith. “You once spoke eagerly about going to Oxford, and taking honours. My dear friend, trust a dying man. There are no honours worth thinking of but the crown and the palm, which Christ bestows on them that love Him.” “Yes,” said Colin; “but we are not all chosen for these. If I have to live, I must qualify myself the best I can for my work. I should like to be of a little use to Scotland, if that was possible. When I hear the poor people here singing their vespers----”