"My brother," said Harold, and he intuitively drew nearer to Robin as he spoke, "do you think that the Apostle John was born a saint, or that he developed into a saint?"
"I think that he became one by living very very near to His Lord, resting on His sacred bosom, and learning love from close intercourse with Him who is Love itself."
"John seems to have been naturally of a fiery disposition," observed Harold Hartley. "Christ gave to him and his brother the title of 'Sons of thunder,' and it is remarkable that it was the disciple whom we commonly associate with ideas of gentleness and tenderness who proposed to call down fire from heaven on an inhospitable village."
"It is some comfort to know that even the beloved disciple had human imperfections," said Robin, "as it prevents our being utterly discouraged at our own. But, Harold, some people, and good people too, think that they can attain to perfection even in this life."
"It seems to me," observed the young missionary, "that they do so by unconsciously lowering the standard of perfection which God has placed before us. It is not even St. John, but his Divine Master, whom we are to seek to resemble. It is indeed only a growing likeness, such as was doubtless seen in St. John; but would not the apostle, even when almost ripe for heaven, have shrunk from indulging such a thought as this: 'I am as good, as holy, as perfect as was Christ, my Divine Master, when on earth'?"
"John would have rejected such a thought as blasphemous," exclaimed Robin. "St. John's words are, 'We know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.'"
"And this assurance of future perfection in the Divine Presence made the apostle add, 'Every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself even as He is pure,'" remarked Harold.
Robin was silent for several minutes, and then observed in a different tone, "It would have been much easier for me to have kept my good resolutions, if I had not had Miss Petty for a travelling companion."
"Do you think that her being in the same ship is a matter of chance? Is it not possible that she may have been made our fellow-traveller without any choice on our part, on purpose to show us how imperfect is our patience, and to give us an opportunity of improving it by practice?" Harold smiled as he spoke, but his words were not uttered in jest.
"Then you think that intercourse with those whom we naturally dislike or despise may be an actual means of grace?" inquired Robin.