_INTERPRETATIONS_.
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.