“The peasants think it is the oracle of a faun,” he said, “one of their old forest gods. And still sometimes they come to consult the old deities here. They seek to know the future, if perchance there is any escape for them out of their miseries, which are many. They think they are seeking the old dethroned gods whom their fathers worshipped, in what they think were happier times. But their poor hearts are really thirsting, not for the dead heroes, but for the living God; not for the unhuman fauns, but for the human Saviour. And often they will listen to me when I speak to them of the Christ Who died and is not dead. And I tell them His words, ‘Come unto Me, all that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.’ And they, being often wearied sore, and overladen, come, and coming, they find rest, for they find Him.”
“I also came here to-day weary and heavy-laden,” she said, “and I go away comforted and at rest.”
“Thou hast not only come to Him, my daughter,” he said, “but thou hast taken His yoke upon thee, which is ‘not my will but Thine!’ His yoke,” he added, “is not indeed always easy, but it is always good. It is the yoke of the plough which shall make thy fields fruitful; the yoke of the water-carrier who brings refreshment wherever he goes. His burdens are not always light, as we understand lightness; but they are burdens which do not hinder, but help. They make the feet ‘swifter,’ not slower, on His ways.”
He spoke with a Greek accent that reminded her of Damaris.
“Thou, like myself, art not of this land,” she said.
“I was from Athens,” he replied. “My mother-tongue was the language in which the great Paul wrote.”
“Thou speakest the words of the gospels as in a mother-tongue,” she said. “From thy lips they seem to drop into my heart fresh from the fountain, with no aqueduct between.”
And as she rose to go away, he said—
“I shall pray constantly for thy little Paul, and for thy husband, and for thee.”