Wych Hazel Part 88

'What is your notion of religion?--as to what it means?'

She glanced up at him again, almost wondering for a moment if his wits were 'touched.' Then seeing his eyes were undoubtedly sane and grave, set her own wits to work.

'It means,' she answered slowly after a pause, 'to me, different things in different people. All sorts of contradictions, I believe!--In mamma, as they tell of her, it meant everything beautiful, and loving, and loveable, and tender. And it puts Dr. Maryland away off--up in the sky, I think. And it just blinds Prim, so that she cannot comprehend common mortals. And it seems to open Gyda's eyes, so that she _does_ understand--like mamma. And--I do not know what it means in you, Mr. Rollo!'

'You never saw it in me.'

'No.'

'Let me give you a lesson to study,' said he. 'Something I have been studying lately a good deal. I must take this minute before we are interrupted. Have you got a Bible here?'

She sprang up and brought her own from the next room, with a certain quick way as if she were excited; Rollo took it and turned over the leaves, then placed it before her open.

'I have heard you read the Bible once. Read now those two verses.'

"For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again."--2 Cor. v. 14, 15.

Wych Hazel read the words slowly, softly,--then look[ed] up at him again.

'Is _that_ what it means in you?' she said.

'What do the words imply, for anybody?' he said, with his eyes going down into hers as they did sometimes, like as if they would get at the yet unspoken thoughts. But hers fell again to the book.

'I suppose, they should mean--what they say,' she answered in the same slow fashion. 'But what that is,--or at least would be,--I do not very well know.'

'If One died for me,--if it is because of his love and death for me that I live at all,--to whom do I properly belong?

myself, or him?'

'Well, and then?' she said, pa.s.sing the question as answered.

'_Then_ a good many things,' he said, smiling again. 'Suppose that he, to whom I belong, has work that he wants done,-- suppose there are people he wants taken care of and helped,--if I love him and if I belong to him, what shall I like to do?'

'What you are doing, I suppose,' said Hazel, with a little undefined twinge that came much nearer jealousy than she guessed.

'That is very plain, and perfectly simple, isn't it?'

'It sounds so.'--And glancing furtively at the bright, clear face, she added to herself Dr. Maryland's old words: 'Love likes her bonds!'--That was plain too.

'Then another question. If I belong to this One whom I love, does not all that I have belong to him too?'

'But it was not _I_ who said you were ruining yourself,' said the girl in her quick way. 'I liked it.'

'Did you?' said he, with one of his flashes of eye. 'But I am giving you a lesson to study. I am not justifying myself.

Answer my question. Does not all I have belong to that One, who loves me and whom I love?'

She bowed her head in a.s.sent. Somehow the words hurt her.

'So that, whatever I do, I cannot be said to _give_ him anything? It is all his already. I am asking you a business question. I want you to answer just as it appears to you.'

'How can it appear but in one way?' said Hazel. 'That must be true, of course.'

'Very well. That is clear. Now suppose further that my Lord has left me special directions about what he wants done to these people I spoke of--am I not to take the directions exactly as they stand, without clipping?'

'Yes.'

He put his hand upon the book which lay before her, and turned back the leaves to the third chapter of Luke; there indicated a verse and bade her read again.

' "He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none." '

'What does that mean?' asked Rollo.

'What it says--if it means anything, I suppose.'

Again Rollo put his hand upon the leaves, turning further back still till he reached the book of Isaiah. And then he gave Wych Hazel these words to read:

'Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every joke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thine house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?'

'How are the commands to be met?' Rollo asked gravely when she had done.

'Why, you have found out!' said Hazel. 'I knew you would go off on a crusade after that October sky, Mr. Rollo.'

He seemed half to forget his subject, or to merge it, in a deep, thoughtful gaze at her for a few moments, over which a smile gradually broke.

'To come back to our lesson,' he said,--'are not these commands to be taken _au pied de la lettre?_'

'They can hardly be the one exception among commands, I should think,'--with a little arch of her eyebrows.

'Then I am bound, am I not, to undo every heavy burden that I can reach? to loose every bond of wickedness, and to break every yoke, and to remove oppression, in so far as it lies with me to do it? Do you not think so?'

'Why, yes!' said Wych Hazel. 'Does anybody _like_ oppression?'

'Does anybody practise it?'

'I do not know, Mr. Rollo. O yes, of course, in some parts of the world. But I mean here. Yes,--those people used to look as if something kept them down,--and I used to think Mr. Morton might help it, I remember.'

'You are not to suppose that oppression is liked for its own sake. That is rarely the case, even in this world. It is for the sake of what it will bring, like other wrong things. But a question more. Can I do _all_ I can, without giving and using all I have for it?'

'That is self-evident.'

'Then it only remains, how to use what I have to the best advantage.'

'Well, even Mr. Falkirk admits you are a good business man,'

said Hazel, laughing a little.

'How are you for a business woman?'

'n.o.body has ever found out. Of course I consider myself capable of anything. But then business never does come into my hands, you know.'