His self-conquest, however, was not very permanent. When he left
York the next morning, he fancied his son was not particularly
grieved, and he was passive under the thought that an epoch in his
life had come, that the milestones now began to show the distance to
the place to which he travelled, and, still worse, that the boy who
had been so close to him, and upon whom he had so much depended, had
gone from him.
There is no remedy for our troubles which is uniformly and
progressively efficacious. All that we have a right to expect from
our religion is that gradually, very gradually, it will assist us to
a real victory. After each apparent defeat, if we are bravely in
earnest, we gain something on our former position. Baruch was two
days on his journey back to town, and as he came nearer home, he
recovered himself a little. Suddenly he remembered the bookshop and
the book for which he had to call, and that he had intended to ask
Marshall something about the bookseller's new assistant.