"What a sublime conception is that of a last judgement ! " said St. Clare, - "a righting of all the wrongs of ages! - a solving of all moral problems, by an unanswerable wisdom! It is, indeed, a wonderful image."
" It is a fearful one to us," said Miss Ophelia.
"It ought to be to me, I suppose," said St Clare, stopping, thoughtfully. "I was reading to Tom, this afternoon, that chapter in Matthew that gives an account of it, and I have been quite struck with it. One should have expected some terrible enormities charged to those who are excluded from Heaven, as the reason; but no, - they are condemned for not doing positive good, as if that included every possible harm."
"Perhaps," said Miss Ophelia, "it is impossible for a person who does no good not to do harm."
"And what," said St Clare, speaking abstractedly, but with deep feeling, "what shall be said of one whose own heart, whose education, and the wants of society, have called in vain to some noble purpose; who has floated on, a dreamy neutral spectator of the struggles, agonies, and wrongs of man, when he should have been a worker?"
"I should say," said Miss Ophelia, "that he ought to repent, and begin now."
