Michael was silent for some moments before he replied, "Ye see, sir, there's such a difference!"
"A difference indeed," said the naval officer; "we are a thousand times more bound to obey a Heavenly than an earthly monarch, and the honour and privilege of being bidden to God's table are a thousand times greater than those of appearing at the Queen's."
"I don't gainsay that, sir, I don't gainsay it," replied Garth; "but there be some difficulties, you see—"
Harry waited for the labourer to finish his sentence, but as he either could not, or would not, the officer spoke again.
"I suppose that there are few duties, Michael, which we might not find some excuse for neglecting. For instance," he held out his hand for the card which was returned to him by Martha, "I might find plenty of excuses for not obeying my Queen by going up to London to-morrow. I might plead that I had just returned to my home after a very long absence, that my family were unwilling to part with me, that I was weary of travelling, that I was expected to attend at a wedding, and was very anxious to do so. I might make such excuses, and others besides, and even persuade myself that they were good ones; but in truth not one of them, nor all of them put together, would really be sufficient to acquit me of disloyal, undutiful neglect of my Queen. Now, my friends, suffer me to entreat you to ask yourselves honestly, as in the sight of the Lord, will your excuses for never attending His Holy Supper be such as you will venture to plead when you stand at the last great Day in the immediate presence of your King?"
"I never had it put to me afore like that," said Garth, looking fixedly into the fire.
"There are various lights in which we may regard the Lord's Supper," continued Harry, "the first and most simple, perhaps, is this; it is a feast to which His faithful subjects are specially called by the great King, whose invitations are commands. Turn to the parable which the Lord himself has given to us. * Observe the gracious invitation, 'Come, for all things are now ready.' Notice the excuses made by those who should have been joyful guests, the ground bought, the oxen to be proved, the wife that had lately been married. Were these excuses accepted?"
* Luke xiv.
Martha looked troubled and uneasy. "I al'ays say as how we should go up to the Table one of these days," she said, "but somehow or other, the time seems never to come."
"I fear that you are not sufficiently in earnest on the subject," observed Harry. "Were a message to be brought to you from our Queen, your mind would be fixed upon it, you would scarcely think of anything else."