cornfield, or at a turning by the wood where a clear brook was gurgling below; and surely, if there came a traveller to this world who knew nothing of the story of man’s life upon it, this image of agony would seem to him strangely out of place in the midst of this joyous nature.  He would not know that hidden behind the apple-blossoms, or among the golden corn, or under the shrouding boughs of the wood, there might be a human heart beating heavily with anguish—­perhaps a young blooming girl, not knowing where to turn for refuge from swift-advancing shame; understanding no more of this life of ours than a foolish lost lamb, wandering farther and farther in the nightfall on the lonely heath, yet tasting the bitterest of life’s bitterness.  Such things are sometimes hidden among the sunny fields and behind the blossoming orchards; and the sound of the gurgling brook, if you came close to one spot behind a small bush, would be mingled for your ear with a despairing human sob.  No wonder man’s religion has much sorrow in it; no wonder he needs a Suffering God.

The remedy for this sorrow, even in the pages of Adam Bede, is not the atoning love of Christ or the blessedness of a divine forgiveness, but the altruistic compassion of man for man.  There is, however, a, deeper recognition in this novel of Christian belief than in any other by George Eliot.  The prayer and sermon of Dinah Morris have a truly Christian tone and thought.  This is not the case with the teachings of Savonarola, who is always much more an altruist than a Christian, and into whose mouth Christian phrases are put, while it is very evident the Christian spirit in its wholeness was not put into his heart.  Sorrow and suffering are regarded in Adam Bede as the means of baptism into a larger life of sympathy, as the means of purification from selfishness and individual aims.  Along with this teaching goes the cognate one, that feeling is the true test of the religious life.  A feeling that draws us close to others in helpfulness is worth more than knowledge, culture and refinement of taste.

The doctrine of retribution is presented as distinctly and positively in Adam Bede as in any subsequent book George Eliot wrote.  It is given the form of distinct statement, and it is developed fully in the working out of the plot.  Parson Irwine speaks the thought of the author in these words: 

“There is no sort of wrong deed of which a man can bear the punishment alone; you can’t isolate yourself, and say that the evil which is in you shall not spread.  Men’s lives are as thoroughly blended with each other as the air they breathe; evil spreads as necessarily as disease.  I know, I feel the terrible extent of suffering this sin of Arthur’s has caused to others; but so does every sin cause suffering to others besides those who commit it.”

The tendency of selfishness and wrong to develop misery is fully unfolded.  The terrible law of moral cause and effect is made apparent throughout the whole work.  The folly of Arthur and the vanity of Hetty work them terrible consequences of evil and bitterness.  Many others are made to suffer with them.  The fatal Nemesis is unmasked in these revelations of human nature.