Secondly, her heart yearned over her own soul's salvation, for what
Christiana had said had taken some hold upon Mercy's mind. Wherefore she
said within herself, I will yet have more talk with this Christiana, and
if I find truth and life in what she shall say, myself with all my heart
shall also go with her. "Neighbour," spoke out Mercy to Mrs. Timorous,
"I did indeed come with you to see Christiana this morning, and since she
is, as you see, a-taking of her last farewell of her country, I think to
walk this sunshine morning a little way with her to help her on the way."
But she told her not of her second reason, but kept that to herself. I
would fain go on with Mercy's memoirs all night. But you will take up
that inviting thread for yourselves. And meantime I shall stop here and
gather up under two or three heads some of the more memorable results and
lessons of that sunshine-morning call.
1. Well, then, to begin with, there was something quite queen-like,
something absolutely commanding, about Christiana's look and manner, as
well as about all she said and did that morning. Mercy's morning
companion had all the advantages that dress and equipage could give her;
while Christiana stood in the middle of the floor in her housewife's
clothes, covered with dust and surrounded with all her dismantled house;
but, with all that, there was something about Christiana that took
Mercy's heart completely captive. All that Christiana had by this time
come through had blanched her cheek and whitened her hair: but all that
only the more commanded Mercy's sensitive and noble soul. To be open to
impressions of that kind is one of the finest endowments of a finely
endowed nature; and, all through, the attentive reader of her history
will be sure to remark and imitate Mercy's exquisite and tenacious
sensibility to all that is true and good, upright and honourable and
noble. And then, what a blessing it is to a girl of Mercy's mould to
meet at opening womanhood with another woman, be it a mother, a mistress,
or a neighbour, whose character then, and as life goes on, can supply the
part of the supporting and sheltering oak to the springing and clinging
vine. Christiana being now the new woman she was, as well as a woman of
great natural wisdom, dignity, and stability of character, the safety,
the salvation of poor motherless Mercy was as good as sure. Indeed, all
Mercy's subsequent history is only one long and growing tribute to the
worth, the constant love, and the sleepless solicitude of this true
mother in Israel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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