Some people may count it odd to talk of a man being "at work" when he reads a book or plays with his children. But there are many different kinds of work. Reading may be very hard work indeed—not of course just looking at a shallow article in a paper, or glancing through a worthless novel, but real steady mastering of facts worth knowing in a volume of history or science. And though playing with a child is not hard work, yet it may really be in one sense work for God, if the father is lovingly trying to win his little one's heart in every possible way, and to please God in so doing.
Archie Stuart being much in and out of Woodbine Cottage, noticed all these items of the way in which his friends lived and acted, and gradually, he seemed to catch something of the same spirit. He began to feel that for a man to live only to himself is not grand; that to please one's self always is very easy, but not beautiful. He saw slowly, more and more, how grand and beautiful, aye, and how manly a thing it is, to be permitted to fight on God's side in the mighty world-wide battle between good and evil.
No namby-pamby matter this, as Archie soon discovered. For with all his young vigour and his strong will, he found soon how little he could do, how strong were the powers of evil; and then it was that his friends could speak to him of One "mighty to save," in whose great strength Archie should, if he willed, be "more than conqueror." And then, Archie learned to pray.
That was how Archie grew more kind and patient during the weeks of his mother's illness. He did not think it himself. He had never found self-restraint harder, or the temptation to sharp self-defence more keen. But others looking on saw the difference in him already.
This learning to pray is a great step in anybody's life. Archie no longer went to Church merely as a dull duty, to listen to words which had as yet no meaning for him, because his eyes were not open to their meaning. He went now to ask God, in common with others, for things which he and they needed, to offer thanks for things already given. Both in Church, and in his own little room, he had begun to draw nearer to the footstool of Christ the King, to know Him as the Crucified, to trust Him as the Saviour, to be taught of His Spirit, to bow before Him as Lord.
For all this Archie lost no whit of his growing manliness. Was it likely? Does any one lose in force or manliness through daily intercourse with a mind infinitely greater and wiser than his own? Besides, what is more manly than self-control, than conquests over one's evil tempers, than a spirit of kindness and generosity to those weaker than one's self? Archie was growing in these things more manly, not less manly, day by day, and many remarked that it was so. The Dunns saw it especially.
[CHAPTER XVIII.]
THE GARDINERS.
THINGS were widely different, next door to the Dunns, from what Archie had found in Woodbine Cottage. It is astonishing what a change comes over the scene, if one just passes from one little cottage home into a second, the two being separated by only a slender wall.
There was not too much religion in the Gardiner household by any means, neither was there too much of happy children's laughter, or too much wifely affection, or too much manliness in the head of the household.