Wayward, inconstant,
always seeking rest, always impelled by new evils, the greatest of
which he himself creates,--protecting and cherishing or blighting and
destroying the fragmentary life of a fallen nature,--incapable
himself of creating new capacities, but nourishing in prosperity and
quickening in adversity those that are left,--he sees the workings of
his own life in the strife of the elements. His powers and activities
are related to his spiritual capacities, as inorganic movements are
related to an organizing life. The resurrection of his higher nature
is like a new creation, secret, sudden, inconsequent. "The wind
bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but
canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is every
one that is born of the Spirit."
* * * * *
AKIN BY MARRIAGE [Continued]
CHAPTER IV.
The designs of Mr. Elam Hunt upon the hand of Laura Stebbins have
already been mentioned, in a former chapter of this history, as well
as the fact that his hopes were encouraged by Mrs. Jaynes who
(to make no secret of the matter) had pledged her word to the
enamored Elam, that when he should be settled in a parish of his own,
Laura should be added to complete the sum of his felicity.
To this agreement Laura herself was not a party; nay, her consent
had never been so much as asked; for though Elam knew that marriage
by proxy was impossible, and, indeed, would doubtless have preferred
to be the bridegroom at his own wedding, he had no objection
whatever to a vicarious courtship; for he was not a forward suitor,
delighting to prattle of his pains to his fair tormentor, as the way
of many is.
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