"To my dying day I shall feel that he has been ill-used. You should
have sent him to Cambridge in spite of his want of faith and given
him the same chance as the other boys had. He would have grown out
of it under proper influence, and perhaps would have taken Orders
after all. Church or no Church, it would have been fairer to him."
This was the only wail with which Mrs Clare ever disturbed her
husband's peace in respect to their sons. And she did not vent this
often; for she was as considerate as she was devout, and knew that
his mind too was troubled by doubts as to his justice in this matter.
Only too often had she heard him lying awake at night, stifling sighs
for Angel with prayers. But the uncompromising Evangelical did not
even now hold that he would have been justified in giving his son,
an unbeliever, the same academic advantages that he had given to the
two others, when it was possible, if not probable, that those very
advantages might have been used to decry the doctrines which he had
made it his life's mission and desire to propagate, and the mission
of his ordained sons likewise. To put with one hand a pedestal
under the feet of the two faithful ones, and with the other to exalt
the unfaithful by the same artificial means, he deemed to be alike
inconsistent with his convictions, his position, and his hopes.
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