“It is because my conscience reproves me as being a defaulter that I am the more able to point out to others the places where my own foot has slipped,” was the meek rejoinder. “I came to India, Alicia, a vigorous, agile man, quite as strong as your Harold is now; you see me, at the age of little more than fifty, an old man, compassed with infirmities, which, alas! hinder my work.”
“But you have worn out your health in the Lord’s service, dear father,” said Alicia.
“By no means altogether so, my child. I was proud of my agility and strength; I liked to show my powers and my daring; I scorned what I thought womanish precautions; what you said just now was often on my lips—‘One cannot always be thinking about health.’ Now with something like repentance I look back on useless, perhaps vainglorious exertions, by which I wasted God-given strength. That strength, if only employed on God’s work, might have made me a vigorous labourer still.”
“It is said, Better wear out than rust out,” observed Alicia.
“That proverb is perfectly true, but it does not quite bear on the subject before us,” was the quiet reply. “The choice is not between wearing and rusting, but between careless, wilful neglect of common precautions (perhaps in the pursuit of amusement), and a conscientious reserving of one’s strength for daily duties. I have known a missionary bring on sunstroke, because she could not resist the pleasure of gathering flowers in the heat of the day, and could not hold up an umbrella whilst wielding the garden-scissors. Another felt that society did her good by refreshing her spirits after hard work. ‘Sitting up late does not mean rising late,’ she observed. So my friend sat up night after night till past eleven, then bravely went to her work at six. Nature could not bear the double strain, and the result was that a valuable missionary had to rest for six months in the Hills, leaving her important station without a single worker.”
“Yes, I see that one should attend to the care of health for the sake of others,” said Alicia, remembering the anxiety which her own little attack of fever had cost her husband.
“And if you are not weary of an old man’s talk,” continued her father, “might I ask whether, when pursuing your work so eagerly, you had no idea that you were doing what Harold, had he known of it, would have forbidden?”
Alicia coloured, and assented by silence. After a while, however, she observed, “My husband had never spoken on the subject.”
“Affection needs not the spoken command; it divines the will, and obeys it.”
“You are rather hard on me, father,” said Alicia. “I fear that you will often blame me, if you notice such little things.”