“You shall have my past thoughts, if you please,” said I, trying to speak lightly. “I would rather not sell my present ones at the price.”
He smiled, and drew out a new penny. “Then let me make the less valuable purchase.”
Even Mr Raymond was a welcome change from her.
“Then tell me, Mr Raymond,” said I, “do things ever happen exactly as one wishes them to do?”
“Once in a thousand times, perhaps,” said he. “I should imagine, though, that the occasion usually comes after long waiting and bitter pain. Generally there is something to remind us that this is not our rest.”
“Why?” I said, and I heard my soul go into the word.
“Why not?” answered he, pithily. “Is the servant so much greater than his Lord that he may reasonably look for things to be otherwise? Cast your mind’s eye over the life of Christ our Master, and see on how many occasions matters happened in a way which you would suppose entirely to His liking? Can you name one?”
I thought, and could not see anything, except when He did a miracle, or when He spent a night in prayer to God.
“I give you those nights of prayer,” said Mr Raymond. “But I think you must yield me the miracles. Unquestionably it must have given Him pleasure to relieve pain; but see how much pain to Himself was often mixed in it!—‘Looking up to Heaven, He sighed’ ere He did one; He wept, just before performing another; He cried, ‘How long shall I be with you, and suffer you!’ ere he worked a third. No, Miss Courtenay, the miracles of our Divine Master were not all pleasure to Himself. Indeed, I should be inclined to venture further, and ask if we have no hint that they were wrought at a considerable cost to Himself. He ‘took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses’; He knew when ‘virtue had gone out of Him.’ That may mean only that His Divine knowledge was conscious of it; but taking both passages together, is it not possible that His wonderful works were wrought at personal expense—that His human body suffered weakness, faintness, perhaps acute pain, as the natural consequence of doing them? You will understand that I merely throw out the hint. Scripture does not speak decisively; and where God does not decide, it is well for men to be cautious.”
“Mr Raymond,” I exclaimed, “how can you be a Whig?”