find it too easy to be restored to favour, however greatly they might
desire it--that is to say, they would not have found it too easy in
the case of one less magnanimous and spiritually-minded than herself.
My mother said but little of the above directly, but the fragments
which occasionally escaped her were pregnant, and on looking back it
is easy to perceive that she must have been building one of the most
stupendous aerial fabrics that have ever been reared.

I have given the above in its more amusing aspect, and am half afraid
that I may appear to be making a jest of weakness on the part of one
of the most devotedly unselfish mothers who have ever existed. But
one can love while smiling, and the very wildness of my mother's
dream serves to show how entirely her whole soul was occupied with
the things which are above. To her, religion was all in all; the
earth was but a place of pilgrimage--only so far important as it was
a possible road to heaven. She impressed this upon both of us by
every word and action--instant in season and out of season, so that
she might fill us more deeply with a sense of God. But the
inevitable consequences happened; my mother had aimed too high and
had overshot her mark. The influence indeed of her guileless and
unworldly nature remained impressed upon my brother even during the
time of his extremest unbelief (perhaps his ultimate safety is in the
main referable to this cause, and to the happy memories of my father,
which had predisposed him to love God), but my mother had insisted on
the most minute verbal accuracy of every part of the Bible; she had
also dwelt upon the duty of independent research, and on the
necessity of giving up everything rather than assent to things which
our conscience did not assent to. No one could have more effectually
taught us to try TO THINK the truth, and we had taken her at her word
because our hearts told us that she was right. But she required