"Yes, my dear."
"Mr. Fitzalan spoke about the nature of the service as bondservice. Don't you remember, grandfather? That if we yield ourselves to God, we are bound to obey Him in everything; and if not yielded to Him, then we must be yielded to evil, bondservants to the Prince of Evil. I thought all that was very striking, the way he put it. And about the mastery of self too, the being slaves to self, or freed from self." Hermione hesitated an instant, recalling his utterance at the Rectory, which she had not so well approved; then she went on— "He spoke about the choice being left to us, though God has of course absolute right to our service—but still we are told—'Choose you this day whom ye will serve,' and then, 'Yield yourselves unto God.' Yes, it was very beautiful. And all about what is meant by yielding— real yielding—having no care for our own will, but only caring to please God."
Harvey counted an after-abstract of the day's sermons highly unnecessary. He was not interested in the said sermons, and to sit through them without listening seemed to him a sufficient tax upon his patience. Moreover, he was no more disposed to take Mr. Fitzalan's teaching secondhand from Hermione, than Hermione was to submit with meekness to Mr. Fitzalan's dictum, except as uttered from the pulpit. So he stirred restlessly, causing the wicker-work of his chair to utter long creaks, as a vent to his dissatisfaction.
"Would you not like another chair?" asked Hermione, disturbed by the squeaks.
"Thanks—no. This is very comfortable."
Mr. Dalrymple spoke next in quiet tones. "Yes, it is a blessed service," he said. "But the yielding of ourselves is not a matter of one moment's resolving or doing, as some would have us believe. It is a long battle."
"Only there has to be first the yielding of our will, grandfather. We have to give ourselves to Christ; and then, once yielded to Him, will He not keep His own?" She had an air of quiet certainty, and her face was bright in the twilight.
"My child, yes, He is faithful. But He will send tests. He will allow us to learn our weakness. That is part of the whole—part of the battle. Yours is only beginning. Mine is nearing the end. 'I have fought a fight,'—not 'a good fight' like St. Paul's, only a long fight with many failures. And He has been with me throughout. The 'crown of glory' is laid up—ready—safe in His keeping."
Harvey could listen now without any inclination to fidget. There was a humble reality in the old man's confidence which touched him, and even aroused in him a vague wish to possess the same—unlike Hermione's confidence. It vexed him that she should break in upon the dreamy soliloquy—
"But, dear grandfather, you don't really think that one never can have yielded up one's will and one's all to God until after very long fighting? Why should there be delay? Why not yield one's all at once?"