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Red Wallflower

<h2 id="id03176" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2> <h5 id="id03177"> INTERPRETATIONS.</h5> Miss Betty hereupon begged to be told more distinctly what was in the British Museum, that anybody should go there 'hundreds of times.' Pitt presently got warm in his subject, and talked long and well; as many people will do when they are full of their theme, even when they can talk upon nothing else. Pitt was not one of those people; he could talk well upon anything, and now he made himself certainly very entertaining. His mother thought so, who cared nothing for the British Museum except in so far that it was a great institution of an old country, which a young country could not rival. She listened to Pitt. Miss Betty gave him even more profound interest and unflagging attention; whether she too were not studying the speaker full as much as the things spoken, I will not say. They had a very pleasant morning of it; conversation diverging sometimes to Assyria and Egypt, and ancient civilizations and arts, and civilization in general. Mrs. Dallas gradually drew back from mingling in the talk, and watched, well pleased, to see how eager the two other speakers became, and how they were lost in their subject and in each other. In the afternoon there was another drive, to which Pitt did not need to be stimulated; and all the evening the two young people were busy with something which engaged them both. Mrs. Dallas breathed freer. 'I think he is smitten,' she said privately to her husband. 'How could he help it? He has seen nobody else to be smitten with.' But Betty Frere was not sure of any such thing; and the very fact of Pitt's disengagedness made him more ensnaring to her. There was nobody else in the village to divert his attention, and the two young people were thrown very much together. They went driving, they rode, and they talked, continually. The map of London was often out, and Mrs. Dallas saw the two heads bent over it, and interested faces looking into each other; and she thought things were going on very fairly. If only the vacation were not so short! For only a little time more, and Pitt must be back at his chambers in London. The mother sighed to herself. She was paying rather a heavy price to keep her son from Dissenters! Betty Frere too remembered that the vacation was coming to an end, and drew her breath rather short. She was depending on Pitt too much for her amusement, she told herself, and to be sure there were other young men in the world that could talk; but she felt a sort of disgust at the thought of them all. They were not near so interesting. They all flattered her, and some of them were supposed to be brilliant; but Betty turned from the thought of them to the one whose lips never condescended to say pretty things, nor made any effort to say witty things. They behaved towards her with a sort of obsequious reverence, which was the fashion of that day much more than of this; and Betty liked far better a manner which never made pretence of anything, was thoroughly natural and perfectly well-bred, but which frankly paid more honour to his mother than to herself. She admired Pitt's behaviour to his mother. Even to his mother it had less formality than was the custom of the day; while it gave her every delicate little attention and every possible graceful observance. The young beauty had sense enough to see that this promised more for Pitt's future wife than any amount of civil subserviency to herself. Perhaps there is not a quality which women value more in a man, or miss more sorely, than what we express by the term manliness. And she saw that Pitt, while he was enthusiastic and eager, and what she called fanciful, always was true, honest, and firm in what he thought right. From that no fancy carried him away. And Miss Betty found the days pass with almost as much charm as fleetness. How fleet they were she did not bear to think. She found herself recognising Pitt's step, distinguishing his voice in the distance, and watching for the one and the other. Why not? He was so pleasant as a companion. But she found herself also starting when he appeared suddenly, thrilled at the unexpected sound of his voice, and conscious of quickened pulses when he came into the room. Betty did not like these signs in herself; at the same time, that which had wrought the spell continued to work, and the spell was not broken. In justice to the young lady, I must say that there was not the slightest outward token of it. Betty was as utterly calm and careless in her manner as Pitt himself; so that even Mrs. Dallas—and a woman in those matters sees far—could not tell whether either or both of the young people had a liking for the other more than the social good-fellowship which was frank and apparent. It might be, and she confessed also to herself that it might not be. 'You must give that fellow time,' said her husband. Which Mrs. Dallas knew, if she had not been so much in a hurry. 'If he met those Gainsboroughs by chance, I would not answer for anything,' she said. 'How should he meet them? They are probably as poor as rats, and have drawn into some corner, out of the way. He will never see them.' 'Pitt is so persistent!' said Mrs. Dallas uneasily. 'He'll be back in England in a few weeks.' 'But when he comes again!' 'He shall not come again. We will go over to see him ourselves next year.' 'That is a very good thought,' said Mrs. Dallas. And, comforted by this thought and the plans she presently began to weave in with it, she looked now with much more equanimity than Betty herself towards the end of Pitt's visit. Mrs. Dallas, however, was not to get off without another shock to her nerves. It was early in September, and the weather of that sultry, hot, and moist character which we have learned to look for in connection with the first half of that month. Miss Frere's embroidery went languidly; possibly there might have been more reasons than one for the slow and spiritless movement of her fingers, which was quite contrary to their normal habit. Mrs. Dallas, sitting at a little distance on the verandah, was near enough to hear and observe what went on when Pitt came upon the scene, and far enough to be separated from the conversation unless she chose to mix in it. By and by he came, looking thoughtful, as Betty saw, though she hardly seemed to notice his approach. There was no token in her quiet manner of the quickened pulses of which she was immediately conscious. Something like a tremulous thrill ran through her nerves; it vexed her to be so little mistress of them, yet the pleasure of the thrill at the moment was more than the pain. Pitt threw himself into a chair near her, and for a few moments watched the play of her needle. Betty's eyelashes never stirred. But the silence lasted too long. Nerves would not bear it. 'What can you find to do in this weather, Mr. Pitt?' she asked languidly. 'It is good weather,' he answered absently. 'Do you ever read the Bible?' Miss Betty's fine eyes were lifted now with an expression of some amusement. They were very fine eyes; Mrs. Dallas thought they could not fail of their effect. 'The Bible?' she repeated. 'I read the lessons in the Prayer-book; that is the same.' 'Is it the same? Is the whole Bible contained in the lessons?' 'I don't know, I am sure,' she answered doubtfully. 'I think so. There is a great deal of it.' 'But you read it piecemeal so.' 'You must read it piecemeal any way,' returned the young lady. 'You can read only a little each day; a portion.' 'You could read consecutively, though, or you could choose for yourself.' 'I like to have the choice made for me. It saves time; and then one is sure one has got hold of the right portion, you know. I like the lessons.' 'And then,' remarked Mrs. Dallas, 'you know other people and your friends are reading that same portion at the same time, and the feeling is very sacred and sweet.' 'But if the Bible was intended to be read in such a way, how comes it that we have no instruction to that end?' 'Instruction was given,' said Mrs. Dallas. 'The Church has ordered it.' 'The Church' said Pitt thoughtfully. 'Who is the Church?' 'Why, my dear,' said Mrs. Dallas, 'don't ask such questions. You know as well as I do.' 'As I understand it, mother, what you mean is simply a body of Christians who lived some time ago.' 'Yes. Well, what then?' 'I do not comprehend how they should know what you and I want to read to-day. I am not talking of Church services. I am talking of private reading.' 'But it is pleasant and convenient,' said Betty. 'May be very inappropriate.' 'Pitt,' said his mother, 'I wish you would not talk so! It is really very wrong. This comes of your way of questioning and reasoning about everything. What we have to do with the Church is to obey.' 'And that is what we have to do with the Bible, isn't it?' he said gravely. 'Undoubtedly.' 'Well, mother, I am not talking to you; I am attacking Miss Frere. I can talk to her on even terms. Miss Frere, I want to know what you understand by obeying, when we are speaking of the demands of the Bible?' 'Obeying? I understand just what I mean by it anywhere.' 'Obeying what?' 'Why, obeying God, of course.' 'Of course! But how do we know what His commands are?' 'By the words—how else?' she asked, looking at him. He was in earnest, for some reason, she saw, and she forbore from the light words with which at another time she would have given a turn to the subject. 'Then you think, distinctly, that we ought to obey the words of the Bible?' 'Ye-s,' she said, wondering what was coming. 'All the words?' 'Yes, I suppose so. All the words, according to their real meaning.' 'How are we to know what that is?' 'I suppose—the Church tells us.' 'Where?' 'I do not know—in books, I suppose.' 'What books? But we are going a little wild. May I bring you an instance or two? I am talking in earnest, and mean it earnestly.' 'Do you ever do anything in any other way?' asked the young lady, with a charming air of fine raillery and recognition blended. 'Certainly; I am in earnest too.' Pitt went away and returned with a book in his hand. 'What have you there? the Prayer-book?' his mother asked, with a doubtful expression. 'No, mamma; I like to go to the Fountain-head of authority as well as of learning.' 'The Fountain-head!' exclaimed Mrs. Dallas, in indignant protest; and then she remembered her wisdom, and said no more. It cost her an effort; however, she knew that for her to set up a defence of either Church or Prayer-book just then would not be wise, and that she had better leave the matter in Betty's hands. She looked at Betty anxiously. The young lady's face showed her cool and collected, not likely to be carried away by any stream of enthusiasm or overborne by influence. It was, in fact, more cool than she felt. She liked to get into a good talk with Pitt upon any subject, and so far was content; at the same time she would rather have chosen any other than this, and was a little afraid whereto it might lead. Religion had not been precisely her principal study. True, it had not been his principal study either; but Betty discerned a difference in their modes of approaching it. She attributed that to the Puritan or dissenting influences which had at some time got hold of him. To thwart those would at any rate be a good work, and she prepared herself accordingly. Pitt opened his book and turned over a few leaves. 'To begin with,' he said, 'you admit that whatever this book commands we are bound to obey?' 'Provided we understand it,' his opponent put in. 'Provided we understand it, of course. A command not understood is hardly a command. Now here is a word which has struck me, and I would like to know how it strikes you.' He turned to the familiar twenty-fifth of Matthew and read the central portion, the parable of the talents. He read like an interested man, and perhaps it was owing to a slight unconscious intonation here and there that Pitt's two hearers listened as if the words were strangely new to them. They had never heard them sound just so. Yet the reading was not dramatic at all; it was only a perfectly natural and feeling deliverance. But feeling reaches feeling, as we all know. The reading ceased, nobody spoke for several minutes. 'What does it mean?' asked Pitt. 'My dear,' said his mother, 'can there be a question what it means? The words are perfectly simple, it seems to me.' 'Mamma, I am not talking to you. You may sit as judge and arbiter; but it is Miss Frere and I who are disputing. She will have the goodness to answer.' 'I do not know what to answer,' said the young lady. 'Are not the words, as Mrs. Dallas says, perfectly plain?' 'Then surely it cannot be difficult to say what the teaching of them is?' If it was not difficult, the continued silence of the lady was remarkable. She made no further answer. 'Are they so plain? I have been puzzling over them. I will divide the question, and perhaps we can get at the conclusion better so. In the first place, who are these "servants" spoken of?' 'Everybody, I suppose. You have the advantage of me, Mr. Dallas; I have not been studying the passage.' 'Yet you admit that we are bound to obey it.' 'Yes,' she said doubtfully. 'Obey what?' 'That is precisely what I want to find out. Now the servants; they cannot mean everybody, for it says, he "called his own servants;" the Greek is "bond-servants."' 'His servants would be His Church then.' 'His own people. "He delivered unto them His goods." What are the goods he delivered to them? Some had more, some had less; all had a share and a charge. What are these goods?' 'I don't know,' said Miss Frere, looking at him. 'What were they to do with these goods?' 'Trade with them, it seems.' 'In Luke the command runs so: "Trade till I come." Trading is a process by which the goods or the money concerned are multiplied. What are the goods given to you and me?—to bring the question down into the practical. It must be something with which we may increase the wealth of Him who has entrusted it to us.' 'Pitt, that is a very strange way of speaking,' said his mother. 'I am talking to Miss Frere, mamma. You have only to hear and judge between us. Miss Frere, the question comes to you.' 'I should say it is not possible to increase "His wealth."' 'That is not my putting of the case, remember. And also, every enlargement of His dominion in this world, every addition made to the number of His subjects, may be fairly spoken of so. The question stands, What are the goods? That is, if you like to go into it. I am not catechizing you,' said Pitt, half laughing. 'I do not dislike to be catechized,' said Miss Frere slowly. By you, was the mental addition. 'But I never had such a question put to me before, and I am not ready with an answer.' 'I never heard the question discussed either,' said Pitt. 'But I was reading this passage yesterday, and could not help starting it. The "goods" must be, I think, all those gifts or powers by means of which we can work for God, and so work as to enlarge His kingdom. Now, what are they?' 'Of course we can pay money,' said the young lady, looking a good deal mystified. 'We can pay money to support ministers, if that is what you mean.' 'So much is patent enough. Is money the only thing?' Miss Frere looked bewildered, Mrs. Dallas impatient. She restrained herself, however, and waited. Pitt smiled. 'We pay money to support ministers and teachers. What do the ministers work with? what do they trade with?' 'The truth, I suppose.' 'And how do they make the truth known? By their lips, and by their lives; the power of the word, with the power of personal influence.' 'Yes,' said Miss Frere; 'of course.' 'Then the goods, or talents, so far as they are commonly possessed, and so far as we have discovered, are three: property, speech, and personal example. But the two last are entrusted to you and me, are they not, as well as the former?' The girl looked at him now with big eyes, in which no shadow of self-consciousness was any more lurking. Eyes that were bewildered, astonished, inquiring, and also disturbed. 'What do you mean?' she said helplessly. 'It comes to this,' said Pitt. 'If we are ready to obey the Bible, we shall use not only our money, but our tongues and ourselves to do the work which—you know—the Lord left to His disciples to do; make disciples of every creature. It will be our one business.' 'How do you mean, our one business?' 'That to which we make all others subservient.' 'Subservient! Yes,' said Miss Frere. 'Subservient in a way; but that does not mean that we should give up everything else for it.' Pitt was silent. 'My dear boy,' said his mother anxiously, 'it seems to me you are straining things quite beyond what is intended. We are not all meant to be clergymen, are we?' 'That is not the point, mamma. The point is, what work is given us?' 'That work you speak of is clergymen's work.' 'Mamma, what is the command?' 'But that does not mean everybody.' 'Where is the excepting clause?' 'But, my dear, what would become of Society?' 'We may leave that. We are talking of obeying the Bible. I have given you one instance. Now I will give you another. It is written over here,' and he turned a few leaves,—'it is another word of Christ to those whom He was teaching,—"If any man serve me, let him follow me." Now here is a plain command; but what is it to follow Christ?' 'To imitate him, I suppose,' said Miss Frere, to whom he looked. 'In what?' The young lady looked at him in silence, and then said, 'Why, we all know what it means when we say that such a person or such a thing is Christlike. Loving, charitable, kind'— 'But to follow Him,—that is something positive and active. Literal following a person is to go where he has gone, through all the paths and to all the places. In the spiritual following, which is intended here,—what is it? It is to do as He did, is it not? To have His aims and purposes and views in life, and to carry them out logically.' 'What do you mean by "logically"?' 'According to their due and proper sequences.' 'Well, what are you driving at?' asked Miss Frere a little worriedly. 'I will tell you. But I do not mean to drive you,' he said, again with a little laugh, as of self-recollection. 'Tell me to stop, if you are tired of the subject.' 'I am not in the least tired; how could you think it? It always delights me when people talk logically. I do not very often hear it. But I never heard of logical religion before.' 'True religion must be logical, must it not?' 'I thought religion was rather a matter of feeling.' 'I believe I used to think so.' 'And pray, what is it, then, Pitt?' his mother asked. 'Look here, mamma. "If any man will serve me, let him follow me."' 'Well, what do you understand by that, Pitt? You are going too fast for me. I thought the love of God was the whole of religion.' 'But here is the "following," mamma.' 'What sort of following?' 'That is what I am asking. As it cannot be in bodily, so it must be in mental footsteps.' 'I do not understand you,' said his mother, with an air both vexed and anxious; while Miss Frere had now let her embroidery fall, and was giving her best consideration to the subject and the speaker. She was a little annoyed too, but she was more interested. This was a different sort of conversation from any she had been accustomed to hear, and Pitt was a different sort of speaker. He was not talking to kill time, or to please her; he was—most wonderful and rare!—in earnest; and that not in any matter that involved material interests. She had seen people in earnest before on matters of speculation and philosophy, often on stocks and schemes for making money, in earnest violently on questions of party politics; but in earnest for the truth's sake, never, in all her life. It was a new experience, and Pitt was a novel kind of person; manly, straightforward, honest; quite a person to be admired, to be respected, to be— Where were her thoughts running? He had sat silent a moment, after his mother's last remark; gravely thinking. Betty brought him back to the point. 'You will tell us what you think "following" means?' she said gently. 'I will tell you,' he said, smiling. 'I am not supposed to be speaking to mamma. If you will look at the way Christ went, you will see what following Him must be. In the first place, Self was nowhere.' 'Yes,' said Miss Frere. 'Who is ready to follow Him in that?' 'But, my dear boy!' cried Mrs. Dallas. 'We are human creatures; we cannot help thinking of ourselves; we are meant to think of ourselves. Everybody must think of self; or the world would not hold together.' 'I am speaking to Miss Frere,' he said pleasantly. 'I confess I think so too, Mr. Dallas. Of course, we ought not to be selfish; that means, I suppose, to think of self unduly; but where would the world be, if everybody, as you say, put self nowhere?' 'I will go on to another point. Christ went about doing good. It was the one business of His life. Whenever and wherever He went among men, He went to heal, to help, to teach, or to warn. Even when He was resting among friends in the little household at Bethany, He was teaching, and one of the household at least sat at His feet to listen.' 'Yes, and left her sister to do all the work,' remarked Mrs. Dallas. 'The Lord said she had done right, mamma.' There ensued a curious silence. The two ladies sat looking at Pitt, each apparently possessed by a kind of troubled dismay; neither ready with an answer. The pause lasted till both of them felt what it implied, and both began to speak at once. 'But, my son'— 'But, Mr. Dallas!'— 'Miss Frere, mamma. Let her speak.' And turning to the young lady with a slight bow, he intimated his willingness to hear her. Miss Frere was nevertheless not very ready. 'Mr. Dallas, do I understand you? Can it be that you mean—I do not know how to put it,—do you mean that you think that everybody, that all of us, and each of us, ought to devote his life to helping and teaching?' 'It can be of no consequence what I think,' he said. 'The question is simply, what is "following Christ"?' 'Being His disciple, I should say.' 'What is that?' he replied quickly. 'I have been studying that very point; and do you know it is said here, and it was said then, "Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple"?' 'But what do you mean, Pitt?' his mother asked in indignant consternation. 'What did the Lord mean, mother?' he returned very gravely. 'Are we all heathen, then?' she went on with heat. 'For I never saw anybody yet in my life that took such a view of religion as you are taking.' 'Do we know exactly Mr. Pitt's view?' here put in the other lady. 'I confess I do not. I wish he would say.' 'I have been studying it,' said Pitt, with an earnest gravity of manner which gave his mother yet more trouble than his words. 'I have gone to the Greek for it; and there the word rendered "forsake" is one that means to "take leave of"—"bid farewell." And if we go to history for the explanation, we do find that that was the attitude of mind which those must needs assume in that day who were disposed to follow Christ. The chances were that they would be called upon to give up all—even life—as the cost of their following. They would begin by a secret taking leave, don't you see?' 'But the times are not such now,' Miss Frere ventured. Pitt did not answer. He sat looking at the open page of his Bible, evidently at work with the problem suggested there. The two women looked at him; and his mother got rid as unobtrusively as possible of a vexed and hot tear that would come. 'Mr. Dallas,' Miss Frere urged again, 'these are not times of persecution any more. We can be Christians—disciples—and retain all our friends and possessions; can we not?' 'Can we without "taking leave" of them?' 'Certainly. I think so.' 'I do not see it!' he said, after another pause. 'Do you think anybody will be content to put self nowhere, as Christ did, giving up his whole life and strength—and means—to the help and service of his fellow men, unless he has come to that mental attitude we were speaking of? No, it seems to me, and the more I think of it the more it seems to me, that to follow Christ means to give up seeking honour or riches or pleasure, except so far as they may be sought and used in His service. I mean for His service. All I read in the Bible is in harmony with that view.' 'But how comes it then that nobody takes it,' said Miss Frere uneasily. 'I suppose,' said Pitt slowly, 'for the same reason that has kept me for years from accepting it;—because it was so difficult.' 'But religion cannot be a difficult thing, my dear son,' said Mrs. Dallas. He looked up at her and smiled, an affectionate, very expressive, wistful smile. 'Can it not, mother? What mean Christ's words here,—"Whosoever doth not take up his cross and follow me, he cannot be my disciple"? The cross meant shame, torture, and death, in those days; and I think in a modified way, it means the same thing now. It means something.' 'But Mr. Pitt, you do not answer my argument,' Miss Frere repeated. 'If this view is correct, how comes it that nobody takes it but you?' 'Your argument is where the dew is after a hot sun,—nowhere. Instead of nobody taking this view, it has been held by hundreds of thousands, who, like the first disciples, have forsaken all and followed Him. Rather than be false to it they have endured the loss of all things, they have given up father and mother, they have borne torture and faced the lions. In later days, they have been chased and worried from hiding-place to hiding-place, they have been cut down by the sword, buried alive, thrown from the tops of rocks, and burned at the stake. And in peacefuller times they have left their homes and countries and gone to the ends of the earth to tell the gospel. They have done what was given them to do, without regarding the cost of it.' 'Then you think all the people who fill our churches are no Christians!' 'I say nothing about the people who fill our churches.' Pitt rose here. 'But, Mr. Dallas, how can all the world be so mistaken? Our clergymen, our bishops, do not preach such doctrine as you do, if I understand you.' 'That has been a great puzzle to me,' he said. 'Is it not enough to make you doubt?' 'Can I question the words I have read to you?' 'No, but perhaps your interpretation of them.' 'When you have got down to the simplest possible English, there is no room that I see for interpretation. "Follow me" can mean nothing but "follow me;" and "forsaking all" is not a doubtful expression.' The discussion would probably have gone on still further, but the elder Dallas's step was heard in the house, and Pitt went away with his book. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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