Atmosphere of Reverence

House at the Locks
Originally uploaded by misscaroliner

"He thought of the atmosphere of reverence that pervaded her home. The background of sanctity that seemed to set the keynote for everything that was said and done. Not that he had been irreverent toward God and the Bible. He had simply not thought of them at all. They hadn't been a factor with which to be reckoned. He believed in a God in a way, because he knew his mother had done so, but how active her belief had been he did not know. She left him when he was barely out of childhood, and the years of school life had not helped to deepen any impression of religion she might have left him. But he hadn't been arrogant toward God, nor actively hostile to religion. He had even gone to church on occasion when he was in the company of those who did. But he just had not had the time for anything outside his scheduled plan for his life, and that schedule had been preparing himself to be a success in his chosen profession, and getting to himself as much happiness as was consistent with that ambition. The fact that his idea of happiness had been fairly sane and clean, and did not include many of the things that the world today professed to enjoy, did not blind his eyes to the difference between his standards and those of the Devereaux family...
...Looking squarely into the eyes of truth there in the middle of the night he was forced to admit that her background was much alien to his own as this Christian household where he was now a guest."

~The Substitute Guest, by Grace Livingston Hill