Part 40 (1/2)
”Oh!” she returned, with a smile of generous confession, ”I was brought up to believe as you do.”
”That but satisfies me that for the present you are incapable of knowing any thing of my principles.”
”I do not wonder at your thinking so,” she returned, with the condescension of superior education, as she supposed, and yet with the first motion of an unconscious respect for the odd little monster.--He, with wheezing chest, went on throwing up the deep, damp, fresh earth, to him smelling of marvelous things. Ruth would have ached all over to see him working so hard!--”Still,” Juliet went on, ”supposing your judgment of me correct, that only makes it the stranger you should imagine that in serving such a one, you are pleasing Him you call your Master. He says whosoever denies Him before men He will deny before the angels of G.o.d.”
”What my Lord says He will do, He will do, as He meant it when He said it: what He tells me to do, I try to understand and do. Now He has told me of all things not to say that good comes of evil. He condemned that in the Pharisees as the greatest of crimes. When, therefore, I see a man like your husband, helping his neighbors near and far, being kind, indeed loving, and good-hearted to all men,”--Here a great sigh, checked and broken into many little ones, came in a tremulous chain from the bosom of the wife--”I am bound to say that man is not scattering his Master abroad. He is indeed opposing Him in words: he speaks against the Son of Man; but that the Son of Man Himself says shall be forgiven him.
If I mistake in this, to my own Master I stand or fall.”
”How can He be his Master if he does not acknowledge Him?”
”Because the very tongue with which he denies Him is yet His. I am the master of the flowers that will now grow by my labor, though not one of them will know me--how much more must He be the Master of the men He has called into being, though they do not acknowledge Him! If the story of the gospel be a true one, as with my heart and soul and all that is in me I believe it is, then Jesus of Nazareth is Lord and Master of Mr.
Faber, and for him not to acknowledge it is to fall from the summit of his being. To deny one's Master, is to be a slave.”
”You are very polite!” said Mrs. Faber, and turned away. She recalled her imaginary danger, however, and turning again, said, ”But though I differ from you in opinion, Mr. Polwarth, I quite recognize you as no common man, and put you upon your honor with regard to my secret.”
”Had you entrusted me with your secret, ma'am, the phrase would have had more significance. But, obeying my Master, I do not require to think of my own honor. Those who do not acknowledge their Master, can not afford to forget it. But if they do not learn to obey Him, they will find by the time they have got through what they call life, they have left themselves little honor to boast of.”
”He has guessed my real secret!” thought poor Juliet, and turning away in confusion, without a word of farewell, went straight into the house.
But before Dorothy, who had been on the watch at the top of the slope, came in, she had begun to hope that the words of the forward, disagreeable, conceited dwarf had in them nothing beyond a general remark.
When Dorothy entered, she instantly accused her of treachery. Dorothy, repressing her indignation, begged she would go with her to Polwarth.
But when they reached the spot, the gnome had vanished.
He had been digging only for the sake of the flowers buried in Juliet, and had gone home to lie down. His bodily strength was exhausted, but will and faith and purpose never forsook the soul cramped up in that distorted frame. When greatly suffering, he would yet suffer with his will--not merely resigning himself to the will of G.o.d, but desiring the suffering that G.o.d willed. When the wearied soul could no longer keep the summit of the task, when not strength merely, but the consciousness of faith and duty failed him, he would cast faith and strength and duty, all his being, into the gulf of the Father's will, and simply suffer, no longer trying to feel any thing--waiting only until the Life should send him light.
Dorothy turned to Juliet.
”You might have asked Mr. Polwarth, Juliet, whether I had betrayed you,” she said.
”Now I think of it, he did say you had not told him. But how was I to take the word of a creature like that?”
”Juliet,” said Dorothy, very angry, ”I begin to doubt if you were worth taking the trouble for!”
She turned from her, and walked toward the house. Juliet rushed after her and caught her in her arms.
”Forgive me, Dorothy,” she cried. ”I am not in my right senses, I do believe. What _is_ to be done now this--man knows it?”
”Things are no worse than they were,” said Dorothy, as quickly appeased as angered. ”On the contrary, I believe we have the only one to help us who is able to do it. Why, Juliet, why what am I to do with you when my father sends the carpenters and bricklayers to the house? They will be into every corner! He talks of commencing next week, and I am at my wits' end.”
”Oh! don't forsake me, Dorothy, after all you have done for me,” cried Juliet. ”If you turn me out, there never was creature in the world so forlorn as I shall be--absolutely helpless, Dorothy!”
”I will do all I can for you, my poor Juliet; but if Mr. Polwarth do not think of some way, I don't know what will become of us. You don't know what you are guilty of in despising him. Mr. Wingfold speaks of him as far the first man in Glaston.”
Certainly Mr. Wingfold, Mr. Drew, and some others of the best men in the place, did think him, of those they knew, the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven. Glaston was altogether of a different opinion. Which was the right opinion, must be left to the measuring rod that shall finally be applied to the statures of men.
The history of the kingdom of Heaven--need I say I mean a very different thing from what is called _church-history?_--is the only history that will ever be able to show itself a history--that can ever come to be thoroughly written, or to be read with a clear understanding; for it alone will prove able to explain itself, while in doing so it will explain all other attempted histories as well. Many of those who will then be found first in the eternal record, may have been of little regard in the eyes of even their religious contemporaries, may have been absolutely unknown to generations that came after, and were yet the men of life and potency, working as light, as salt, as leaven, in the world. When the real worth of things is, over all, the measure of their estimation, then is the kingdom of our G.o.d and His Christ.
CHAPTER XLII.
THE POTTERY.