‘Look back on the past year, and say if you sincerely think you are fit for confirmation.’ ‘As to that,’ said Jane, ‘the best people are always saying that they are not fit for these things.’ ‘None can call themselves worthy of them; but I think the conscience of some would bear them witness that they had profited so far by their present means of grace as to give grounds for hoping that they would derive benefit from further assistance.’ ‘Well, I suppose I must be very bad, since you see it,’ said Jane, in a manner rather more subdued; ‘but I did not think myself worse than other people.’ ‘Is a Christian called, only to be no worse than others?’ ‘Oh no! I see, I mean—pray tell me my great fault. Pertness, I suppose—love of gossip?’ ‘There must be a deeper root of evil, of which these are but the visible effects, Jane.’ ‘What do you mean, Robert?’ said Jane, now seeming really impressed. ‘I think, Jane, that the greatest and most dangerous fault of your character is want of reverence. I think it is want of reverence which makes you press forward to that for which you confess yourself unfit; it is want of reverence for holiness which makes you not care to attain it; want of reverence for the Holy Word that makes you treat it as a mere lesson; and in smaller matters your pertness is want of reverence for your superiors; you would not be ready to believe and to say the worst of others, if you reverenced what good there may be in them. Take care that your want of reverence is not in reality want of faith.’ Jane’s spirits were weak and subdued. It was a great shock to her to hear that she was not thought worthy of confirmation; her faults had never been called by so hard a name; she was in part humbled, and in part grieved, and what she thought harshness in her cousin; she turned away her face, and did not speak. He continued, ‘Jane, you must not think me unkind, your father desired me to talk to you, and, indeed, the time of recovery from sickness is too precious to be trifled away.’ Jane wept bitterly. Presently he said, ‘It grieves me to have been obliged to speak harshly to you, you must forgive me if I have talked too much to you, Jane.’