Alas! as
Job says, 'ye imagine to reprove words; and the speeches of one that is
desperate, which are as wind.'
'Yes, hard-hearted, unrelenting Pharisee.' The torrent roared on, and
the wind was up; it was night and storm with poor Devereux. 'You who
pray every day--oh--damnable hypocrisy--lead us not into temptation--you
neither care nor ask to what courses your pride and obstinacy are
driving me--your fellow-creature.'
'Ah, Captain Devereux, you are angry with me, and yet it's not my doing;
the man that is at variance with himself will hardly be at one with
others. You have said much to me that is unjust, and, perhaps, unseemly;
but I won't reproach you; your anger and trouble make wild work with
your words. When one of my people falls into sin, I ever find it is so
through lack of prayer. Ah! Captain Devereux, have you not of late been
remiss in the duty of private prayer?'
The captain laughed, not pleasantly, into the ashes in the grate. But
the doctor did not mind, and only said, looking upward--.
'Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.'
There was kindness, and even tenderness, in the tone in which simple Dr.
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