The Puritans by Arlo Bates
page 262 of 453 (57%)
page 262 of 453 (57%)
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"It seems that he is a cousin of that Mrs. Gore where we heard that
heathen, and she is greatly interested in Mr. Strathmore's election. Mr. Wentworth promised her his vote. How people are carried away by that man. Mr. Wentworth told me that he looked upon him as the greatest man in the church to-day." "It is strange," Maurice assented absently; "but he is a man of great personal fascination." "To me," Philip retorted, "he is a whited sepulchre. His doctrine of mental reservation amounts to nothing less than that a priest is at liberty to believe anything he pleases if he will only conform outwardly." Maurice was secretly much of the same opinion, but they came now to the dinner table, where silence was the rule. Wynne had a feeling of dishonesty from the fact that he concealed from his friend that he had sought an interview with Strathmore, yet he felt that he could not confess the visit. While they sat at table a brother read aloud, and the reading chanced to be to-night from the book of Job. The words of the splendid poem mingled in the mind of Maurice with the most incongruous and unpriestly thoughts. He chafed at the routine into which he had fallen as into a pit from which he had once escaped; the meagre repast seemed to him pitifully poor; and most of all he was angry with himself that he could not feel joy at his return to the house which was the symbol of the consecrated work to which he had given his life. After dinner came an hour and a half of recreation, and in this he was called to the study of the Father Superior. "You returned so late in the day," the Father said with a smile, "that |
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