Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. I, 1866.djvu/287

Rh medicines would not be blessed, if taken with due trust in a higher influence? A Christian must consider not the medicines alone in their relation to our frail bodies (which are dust), but the medicines with Omnipotence behind them. Hence a pious vendor will look for "leadings," and he is likely to find them in the cessation of demand and the disproportion of expenses and returns. The grocer was thus on his guard against the presumptuous disputant.

"Mr Lyon may understand you, sir," he replied. "He seems to be fond of your conversation. But you have too much of the pride of human learning for me. I follow no new lights."

"Then follow an old one," said Felix, mischievously disposed towards a sleek tradesman. "Follow the light of the old-fashioned Presbyterians that I've heard sing at Glasgow. The preacher gives out the psalm, and then everybody sings a different tune, as it happens to turn up in their throats. It's a domineering thing to set a tune and expect everybody else to follow it. It's a denial of private judgment."

"Hush, hush, my young friend," said Mr Lyon, hurt by this levity, which glanced at himself as well as at the deacon. "Play not with paradoxes.