Truants from love, we dream of wrath;-- Oh, rather let us trust the more! Through all the wanderings of the path, We still can see our Father's door! THE MINISTER'S WOOING. [Continued.] CHAPTER X. THE TEST OF THEOLOGY. The Doctor went immediately to his study and put on his best coat and his wig, and, surmounting them by his cocked hat, walked manfully out of the house, with his gold-headed cane in his hand. "There he goes!" said Mrs. Scudder, looking regretfully after him. "He is such a good man! but he has not the least idea how to get along in the world. He never thinks of anything but what is true; he hasn't a particle of management about him." "Seems to me," said Mary, "that is like an Apostle. You know, mother, St. Paul says, 'In simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world.'" "To be sure,--that is just the Doctor," said Mrs. Scudder; "that's as like him as if it had been written for him. But that kind of way, somehow, don't seem to do in our times; it won't answer with Simeon Brown,----I know the man. I know just as well, now, how it will all seem to him, and what will be the upshot of this talk, if the Doctor goes there! It won't do any good; if it would, I would be willing. I feel as much desire to have this horrid trade in slaves stopped as anybody; your father, I'm sure, said enough about it in his time; but then I know it's no use trying. Just as if Simeon Brown, when he is making his hundreds of thousands in it, is going to be persuaded to give it up! He won't, --he'll only turn against the Doctor, and won't pay his part of the salary, and will use his influence to get up a party against him, and our church will be broken up and the Doctor driven away,--that's all that will come of it; and all the good that he is doing now to these poor negroes will be overthrown,--and they never did have so good a friend. If he would stay here and work gradually, and get his System of Theology printed,--and Simeon Brown would help at that,--and only drop words in season here and there, till people are brought along with him, why, by-and-by something might be done; but now, it's just the most imprudent thing a man could undertake." "But, mother, if it really is a sin to trade in slaves and hold them, I don't see how he can help himself. I quite agree with him. I don't see how he came to let it go so long as he has." "Well," said Mrs. Scudder, "if worst comes to worst, and he will do it, I, for one, shall stand by him to the last." "And I, for another," said Mary. "I would like him to talk with Cousin Zebedee about it," said Mrs. Scudder. "When we are up there this afternoon, we will introduce the conversation. He is a good, sound man, and the Doctor thinks much of him, and perhaps he may shed some light upon this matter." Meanwhile the Doctor was making the best of his way, in the strength of his purpose to test the orthodoxy of Simeon Brown.