“I should call it indolence,” replied Emmie. Her brother added the word “presumption.”
“And if a soldier on the eve of a battle should hire a substitute to fight in his stead,” continued Bruce, “what would such an act appear to his comrades and captain?”
“Cowardice,” answered Emmie.
“There have been instances,” said Bruce, “of pilgrimages and penances, imposed on the wealthy, being performed by proxy! A poor man endured, for the sake of money, what the rich man believed to be the penalty of his own sins. What were such penances or pilgrimages, Emmie?”
“A mockery,” was the faltered reply.
“And if in man’s sight there are duties which we cannot make over to others without presumption, cowardice, and rendering the performance of them a solemn mockery, think you that the Divine Master looks with favour on services done by proxy? He intends the rich to come in contact with their poorer brethren. He claims from us not merely the money which we can easily give, but the words of our lips, the strength of our limbs, the thoughts of our brains, the time which is far more precious than gold. The work which your Master gives you to do, the special work, no substitute can perform.”
“Oh! I wish with all my heart and soul that we had never left Summer Villa, never come to Myst Hall!” exclaimed Emmie.
Bruce was a little disappointed that such an exclamation should be the only reply to his serious words. “You would surely not desire to pass through life putting aside every cross but the fanciful ornament which it is the fashion to wear!” he remarked with slight severity in his manner. “You have given yourself, body and soul, to a heavenly Master,—is it for Him or for you to choose your work? Is it a very hard command if He say to you now, ‘Work for one half-hour each day in My vineyard’?”
“I would rather work for six hours with my fingers quietly in my own room,” murmured Emmie.
“That is, you would select your own favourite kind of work, take merely what is pleasant and easy, and what suits your natural temper,” said Bruce. “There is nothing to thwart your will or try your temper in making pretty trifles, cultivating your accomplishments, or managing a small household such as ours.”