He smiled and came immediately with a bunch of Myosotis in his hand, which he threw into Eleanor"s lap; and turning to her he repeated very seriously his question.
"What is it, to be a servant of Jesus Christ?"
"I know very little," said Eleanor timidly. "I am only just beginning to learn."
"You know the words bring for our refreshment only the meaning that we attach to them--except so far as the Holy Spirit answering our prayers and endeavours shews us new meaning and depth that we had not known before."
"Of course--but I suppose I know very little. These words convey only the mere fact to me."
"Let us weight the words. A servant is a follower. Christ said, "If a man serve me, let him _follow me_.""
"Yes,--I know."
"A follower must know where his Master goes. How did Christ walk?"
"He went about doing good."
"He did; but mark, there are different ways of doing that. Get to the root of the matter. The young man who kept all the commandments from his youth, was not following Christ; and when it came to the pinch he turned his back upon him."
"How then, Mr. Rhys? You mean heart-following?"
"That is what the Lord means. Look here--Paul says in the ninth verse,--"Whom I serve _with my spirit_ in the gospel"--Following cannot have a different end in view from that of the person followed. And what was Christ"s?--"My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." Are we servants of Christ after that rule, Miss Powle?"
The question had a singular intonation, as if the questioner were charging it home upon himself. Yet Eleanor knew he could answer it in the affirmative and that she could not; she sat silent without looking up. The old contrast of character recurred to her, in spite of the fact that her own had changed so much. She hung over the book, while her companion half abstractedly repeated,
""My meat is to do the will of him that sent me."--That makes a way of life of great simplicity."
"Is it always easy to find?" ventured Eleanor.
"Very!--if his will is all that we desire."
"But that is a very searching, deep question."
"Let it search, then. "My meat is to do the will of him--" No matter what that may be, Miss Powle; our choice lies in this--that it is his will. And as soon as we set our hearts upon one or the other particular sort of work, or labour in any particular place, or even upon any given measure of success attending our efforts, so that we are not willing to have him reverse our arrangements,--we are getting to have too much will about it."
Eleanor looked up with some effort.
"You are making it a great matter, to be a true servant of Christ, Mr.
Rhys."
"Would you have it a little matter?" he said with a smile of great sweetness and brightness. "Let the Lord have all! He was among us "as one that serveth"--amid discouragements and disappointments, and abuse; and he has warned us that the servant is not greater than his Lord. It is not a little thing, to be the minister of Jesus Christ!"
"Now you are getting out of the general into the particular."
"No--I am not; a "minister" is but a servant; what we call a minister, is but in a more emphatic degree the servant of all. The rules of service are the same for him and for others. Let us look at another one. Here it is--in John--"
And the fingers that Eleanor had watched the other morning, and with which she had a curious a.s.sociation, came turning over the leaves.
""Ye call me Master, and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another"s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you."--One thing is plain from that, Miss Eleanor--we are not to consider ourselves too good for anything."
"No--" said Eleanor;--"but I suppose that does not forbid a just judgment of ourselves or of others, in respect of their adaptations and qualifications."
"Yes it does," he said quickly. "The only question is, Has the Lord put that work in your hands? If he has, never ask whether your hands are the right ones. He knows. What our Lord stooped to do, well may we!"
Eleanor dared not say any more; she knew of what he was thinking; whether he had a like intuition with respect to her thoughts she did not know, and would not risk them any nearer discovery.
"There is another thing about being a servant of Christ," he presently went on;--"it ensures some kind and degree of persecution."
"Do you think so?" said Eleanor; "in these days? Why, it is thought praiseworthy and honourable, is it not, through all the land, to be good? to be a member of the Church, and to fulfil the requirements of religion? Does anybody lose respect or liking from such a cause?"
"No. But he suffers persecution. My dear friend, what are the "requirements of religion?" We are just considering them. Can you remember a servant of Christ, such as we have seen the name means, in your knowledge, whom the world allowed to live in peace?"
Eleanor was silent.
""Remember the word that I said unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.""
"But in _these_ days, Mr. Rhys?" said Eleanor doubtfully.
"I can only say, that if you are of the world, the world will love his own. I know no other way of securing that result. "Because ye are not of the world," Jesus said, "but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." And it is declared, elsewhere, that all that will live G.o.dly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Can you remember any instance to the contrary?"
Eleanor looked up and gave Mr. Rhys a good view of her honest eyes; they looked very intent now and somewhat sorrowful.
"Mr. Rhys, except in Pla.s.sy, I do not know such a person as you ask me about."
"Is it possible!" he said.
"Mr. Rhys, I was thinking the servants of Christ have good need of that "helmet of salvation" I used to wish for."
"Well, they have it!" he said brightly. ""If any man serve me, let him follow me; _and where I am, there shall also my servant be_." That is the end of all. But there is another point of service that occurs to me. We have seen that we must not lease ourselves; I recollect that in another place Paul says that if he pleased men, he would not be the servant of Christ. There is a point where he and the world would come in contact of opposition."
"But I thought we ought to please everybody as much as we could?"
He smiled, put his hand over and turned two or three leaves of the Bible which she kept open at the first of Romans, and pointed to a word in the fifteenth chapter. "Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good, to edification."
"There is your limit," said he. "So far thou mayest go, but no further.
And to do that you will find requires quite sufficiently that you should not please yourself. And now how shall we do all this?--how shall we be all this?"
"You are asking the very question!" said Eleanor gravely.
"We must come to the root and spring of all this service and following--it is our love of the Lord himself. That will do it, and nothing else will. "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.""
"But suppose," said Eleanor, with some difficulty commanding her voice,--"suppose one is deficient in that very thing? suppose one wants that love?"
"Ay!" he said, looking into her face with his eyes of light,--"suppose one does; what then?"
Eleanor could not bear them; her own eyes fell. "What is one to do?"--Mr. Rhys had risen up before he answered, in his deliberate accents,