Page:Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey (1st edition), Volume 3 (Agnes Grey).djvu/172

164 Well,' says he, 'you must come to church, where you'll hear the scriptures properly explained, instead of sitting poring over your bible at home.'

"But I telled him, I always used coming to church when I had my health; but this very cold winter weather I hardly durst venture so far—and me so bad i'th' rheumatiz' an' all.

"But he says, 'It'll do your rheumatiz good to hobble to church; there's nothing like exercise for the rheumatiz. You can walk about the house well enough; why can't you walk to church? The fact is,' says he, 'you're getting too fond of your ease. It' always easy to find excuses for shirking one's duty.'

"But then, you know Miss Grey, it wasn't so. However I telled him I'd try. 'But please sir,' says I, "if I do go to church, what the better shall I be? I want to have my sins blotted out, and to feel that they are remembered no more against me, and that the love of God is shed abroad in my heart; and if I can get no good by reading my bible, an' saying my prayers at home, what good shall I get by going to church?"

The church,' says he, 'is the place