On the morning after the latter of those two sermons, Frederick,
as they sat at breakfast, succeeded, with no small effort, for he
feared his mother, in blurting out to his father the request that
he might be taken into the counting house; and when indignantly
requested, over the top of the teapot, to explain himself, declared
that he found it impossible to give his mind to a course of education
which could only end in the disappointment of his parents, seeing
he was at length satisfied that he had no call to the ministry.
His father was not displeased at the thought of having him at the
shop; but his mother was for some moments speechless with angry
tribulation. Recovering herself, with scornful bitterness she
requested to know to what tempter he had been giving ear--for
tempted he must have been ere son of hers would have been guilty
of backsliding from the cause; of taking his hand from the plough
and looking behind him. The youth returned such answers as, while
they satisfied his father he was right, served only to convince
his mother, where yet conviction was hardly needed, that she had to
thank the dominie for his defection, his apostasy from the church
to the world.
Incapable of perceiving that now first there was hope of a genuine
disciple in the child of her affection, she was filled with the gall
of disappointment, and with spite against the man who had taught
her son how worse than foolish it is to aspire to teach before one
has learned; nor did she fail to cast scathing reflections on her
husband, in that he had brought home a viper in his bosom, a wolf
into his fold, the wretched minion of a worldly church to lead her
son away captive at his will; and partly no doubt from his last
uncomfortable sermons, but mainly from the play of Mrs Marshal's
tongue on her husband's tympanum, the deacons in full conclave
agreed that no further renewal of the invitation to preach "for
them" should be made to the schoolmaster--just the end of the
business Mr Graham had expected, and for which he had provided.
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