But it is also true that
while professing to admire this trait in her, as charming in a young
daughter, the professor had also, pityingly and gently, told this young
daughter that these things were her father's concessions to the narrow
age and trammelled profession to which he belonged; that the fact was,
free thought was discouraged, because there was that in every church
which would not bear its light; that her wise father was one of a
hundred in recognizing this, and trying to shield her while she was
young.
You are also to remember that she _was_ young, and therefore forgive her
that she did not detect the contradictory sophistry in the professor's
words. He really understood how to sugar-coat poison as well as any man
of his stamp could.
CHAPTER XVI.
"HERE WAS HIS OPPORTUNITY."
But the question which would keep forcing itself on Gracie Dennis was
this: "If he really knows of nice books, full of 'the beautiful' and
'the ennobling,' that would enlighten the race, as he has often told me,
why doesn't he mention some of them now? There is no minister here
'trammelled by long years of narrowing education.' How does he know but
that these people are as 'advanced' in their ideas as he is himself?"
I do not mean that she was conscious of thinking these thoughts, but
that they hovered on the edge, as it were, of her mind, making her feel
ill at ease.
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