A Red Wallflower

'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 havenot 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?'