“Yes,” resumed I, after a pause,--“yes, it is indeed a glorious and fair world which we have for our inheritance. Look how the sunlight sleeps yonder upon fields covered with golden corn; and seems, like the divine benevolence of which you spoke, to smile upon the luxuriance which its power created. This carpet at our feet, covered with flowers that breathe, sweet as good deeds, to Heaven; the stream that breaks through that distant copse, laughing in the light of noon, and sending its voice through the hill and woodland, like a messenger of glad tidings; the green boughs over our head, vocal with a thousand songs, all inspirations of a joy too exquisite for silence; the very leaves, which seem to dance and quiver with delight,--think you, Aubrey, that these are so sullen as not to return thanks for the happiness they imbibe with being: what are those thanks but the incense of their joy? The flowers send it up to heaven in fragrance; the air and the wave, in music. Shall the heart of man be the only part of His creation that shall dishonour His worship with lamentation and gloom? When the inspired writers call upon us to praise our Creator, do they not say to us,--‘Be _joyful_ in your God?’” “How can we be joyful with the Judgment-Day ever before us?” said Aubrey; “how can we be joyful” (and here a dark shade crossed his countenance, and his lip trembled with emotion) “while the deadly passions of this world plead and rankle at the heart? Oh, none but they who have known the full blessedness of a commune with Heaven can dream of the whole anguish and agony of the conscience, when it feels itself sullied by the mire and crushed by the load of earth!” Aubrey paused, and his words, his tone, his look, made upon me a powerful impression. I was about to answer, when, interrupting me, he said, “Let us talk not of these matters; speak to me on more worldly topics.” “I sought you,” said I; “that I might do so,” and I proceeded to detail to Aubrey as much of my private intercourse with the Abbe as I deemed necessary in order to warn him from too close a confidence in the wily ecclesiastic. Aubrey listened to me with earnest attention: the affair of the letter; the gross falsehood of the priest in denying the mention of my name, in his epistle, evidently dismayed him. “But,” said he, after a long silence,--“but it is not for us, Morton,--weak, ignorant, inexperienced as we are,--to judge prematurely of our spiritual pastors. To them also is given a far greater license of conduct than to us, and ways enveloped in what to our eyes are mystery and shade; nay, I know not whether it be much less impious to question the paths of God’s chosen than to scrutinize those of the Deity Himself.” “Aubrey, Aubrey, this is childish!” said I, somewhat moved to anger. “Mystery is always the trick of imposture: God’s chosen should be distinguished from their flock only by superior virtue, and not by a superior privilege in deceit.”