Tremaine looked thoughtful; Caleb's childlike faith and extensive vocabulary were alike puzzles to him. He did not understand that in homes—however simple—where the Bible is studied until it becomes as household words, the children are accustomed to a "well of English undefiled"; and so, unconsciously, mould their style upon and borrow their expressions from the Book which, even when taken only from a literary standpoint, is the finest Book ever read by man.
After a minute's silence he said: "I have been wondering whether it really is any pleasure to the poor to see the homes of the rich, or whether it only makes them dissatisfied. Now, what do you think, Bateson?"
"Well, sir, if it makes 'em dissatisfied it didn't ought to."
"Perhaps not. Still, I have a good deal of sympathy with socialism myself; and I know I should feel it very hard if I were poor, while other men, not a whit better and probably worse than myself, were rich."
"And so it would be hard, sir, if this was the end of everything, and it was all haphazard, as it were; so hard that no sensible man could see it without going clean off his head altogether. But when you rightly understand as it's all the Master's doing, and that He knows what He's about a sight better than we could teach Him, it makes a wonderful difference. Whether we're rich or poor, happy or sorrowful, is His business and He can attend to that; but whether we serve Him rightly in the place where He has put us, is our business, and it'll take us all our time to look after it without trying to do His work as well."
Tremaine merely smiled, and Bateson went on—
"You see, sir, there's work in the world of all kinds for all sorts; and whether they be lords and ladies, or just poor folks like we, they've got to do the work that the Lord has set them to do, and not to go hankering after each other's. Why, Mr. Tremaine, if at our place the puddlers wanted to do the work of the shinglers, and the shinglers wanted to do the work of the rollers, and the rollers wanted to do the work of the masters, the Osierfield wouldn't be for long the biggest ironworks in Mershire. Not it! You have to use your common sense in religion as in everything else."
"You think that religion is the only thing to make people contented and happy? So do I; but I don't think that the religion to do this effectually is Christianity."
"No more do I, sir; that's where you make a mistake, begging your pardon; you go confusing principles with persons. It isn't my love for my wife that lights the fire and cooks the dinner and makes my little home like heaven to me—it's my wife herself; it wasn't my children's faith in their daddy that fed 'em and clothed 'em when they were too little to work for themselves—it was me myself; and it isn't the religion of Christ that keeps us straight in this world and makes us ready for the next—it is Christ Himself."
Thus the rich man and the poor man talked together, moving along parallel lines, neither understanding, and each looking down upon the other—Alan with the scornful pity of the scholar who has delved in the dust of dreary negatives which generations of doubters have gradually heaped up; and Caleb with the pitiful scorn of one who has been into the sanctuary of God, and so learned to understand the end of these men.