Part 72 (1/2)

'What?' exclaimed Mrs. Dallas bewilderedly.

'It is true, mother. I am Christ's servant. The things are the same.

How should I not be the servant, the _bond-servant_, of Him who has made a free man of me?'

His tone was not excited; it was quiet and sweet; but Mrs. Dallas was excited.

'A free man? My boy, what are you saying? Were you not always free?'

'No, mother. I was in such bonds, that I have been struggling for years to do what was right--what I knew was right--and was unable.'

'To do what was right? My boy, how you talk! You _always_ did what was right.'

'I was never Christ's servant, mamma.'

'What delusion is this!' cried Mrs. Dallas. 'My son, what do you mean?

You were baptized, you were confirmed, you were everything that you ought to be. You cannot be better than you have always been.'

He smiled, stooped down and kissed her troubled face.

'I was never Christ's servant before,' he repeated. 'But I am His servant now at last, all there is of me. I wanted you to know at once, and Miss Frere, I wanted her to know it. She asked me yesterday whom I was fighting? and I saw directly that I was fighting a won battle; that my reason and conscience were entirely vanquished, and that the only thing that held out was my will. I have given that up, and now I am the Lord's servant.'

'You were His servant before.'

'Never, in any true sense.'

'My dear, what difference?' asked Mrs. Dallas helplessly.

'It was nominal merely.'

'And now?'

'Now it is not nominal; it is real. I have come to know and love my Master. I am His for life and death; and now His commands seem the pleasantest things in the world to me.'

'But you obeyed them always?'

'No, mamma, I did not. I obeyed nothing, in the last resort, but my own supreme will.'

'But, Pitt, you say you have come to know; what time has there been for any such change?'

'Not much time,' he replied; 'and I cannot tell how it is; but it seemed as if, so soon as I had given up the struggle and yielded, scales fell from my eyes. I cannot tell how it was; but all at once I seemed to see the beauty of Christ, which I never saw before; and, mamma, the sight has filled me with joy. Nothing now to my mind is more reasonable than His demands, or more delightful than yielding obedience to them.'

'Demands? what demands?' said Mrs. Dallas.

Her son repeated the words with which the twelfth chapter of Romans begins.

'”I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of G.o.d, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto G.o.d, which is your reasonable service; and be not conformed to this world.”'

'But, my dear, that means'--

'It means all.'