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." "Always practical and to the point!" said St.Clare, his face breaking out into a smile.

"You never leave me any time for general reflections, Cousin; you always bring me short up against the actual present; you have a kind of eternal _now_, always in your mind." "_Now_ is all the time I have anything to do with," said Miss Ophelia.
"Dear little Eva,--poor child!" said St.Clare, "she had set her little simple soul on a good work for me." It was the first time since Eva's death that he had ever said as many words as these to her, and he spoke now evidently repressing very strong feeling.
"My view of Christianity is such," he added, "that I think no man can consistently profess it without throwing the whole weight of his being against this monstrous system of injustice that lies at the foundation of all our society; and, if need be, sacrificing himself in the battle.
That is, I mean that _I_ could not be a Christian otherwise, though I have certainly had intercourse with a great many enlightened and Christian people who did no such thing; and I confess that the apathy of religious people on this subject, their want of perception of wrongs that filled me with horror, have engendered in me more scepticism than any other thing." "If you knew all this," said Miss Ophelia, "why didn't you do it ?" "O, because I have had only that kind of benevolence which consists in lying on a sofa, and cursing the church and clergy for not being martyrs and confessors.

One can see, you know, very easily, how others ought to be martyrs." "Well, are you going to do differently now ?" said Miss Ophelia.
"God only knows the future," said St.Clare.

"I am braver than I was, because I have lost all; and he who has nothing to lose can afford all risks." "And what are you going to do ?" "My duty, I hope, to the poor and lowly, as fast as I find it out," said St.Clare, "beginning with my own servants, for whom I have yet done nothing; and, perhaps, at some future day, it may appear that I can do something for a whole class; something to save my country from the disgrace of that false position in which she now stands before all civilized nations." "Do you suppose it possible that a nation ever will voluntarily emancipate ?" said Miss Ophelia.
"I don't know," said St.Clare.

"This is a day of great deeds.