ch
religious doctrines used to be presented to the young girl from the
pulpit, that it naturally opened her heart and warmed her affections.
Remember, if she needs excuse, that the defeated instincts of a strong
nature were rushing in upon her, clamorous for their rights, and that
she was not yet mature enough to understand and manage them. The paths
of love and religion are at the fork of a road which every maiden
travels. If some young hand does not open the turnpike gate of the
first, she is pretty sure to try the other, which has no toll-bar. It is
also very commonly noticed that these two paths, after diverging awhile,
run into each other. True love leads many wandering souls into the
better way. Nor is it rare to see those who started in company for the
gates of pearl seated together on the banks that border the avenue to
that other portal, gathering the roses for which it is so famous.

It was with the most curious interest that the minister listened to
the various heresies into which her reflections had led her. Somehow or
other they did not sound so dangerous coming from her lips as when they
were uttered by the coarser people of the less rigorous denominations,
or preached in the sermons of heretical clergymen. He found it
impossible to think of her in connection with those denunciations of
sinners for which his discourses had been noted. Some of the sharp old
church-members began to complain that his exhortations were losing their
pungency. The truth was, he was preaching for Myrtle Hazard. He was
getting bewitched and driven beside himself by the intoxication of his
relations with her.

All this time she was utterly unconscious of any charm that she was
exercising, or of being herself subject to any personal fascination.
She loved to read the books of ecstatic contemplation which he furnished
her. She loved to sing the languishing hymns which he selected for
her. She loved to listen to his devotional rhapsodies, hardly knowing
sometimes whether she were in the body, or out of the body, while he
lifted her upon the wings of his passion-kindled rhetoric. The time came
when she had learned to listen for his step, when her eyes glistened at
meeting him, when the words he uttered were treasured as from something
more than a common mortal, and the book he had touched was like a
saintly relic. It never suggested itself to her for an instant that this
was anything more than such a friendship as Mercy might have cul