“Ah! the world,” Baird reflected. “If we dare to come back to the world—to count it as a factor——”
“It is only the world we know,” Latimer said, his harsh voice unsteady; “the world’s sorrow—the world’s pain—the world’s power to hurt and degrade itself. That is what seems to concern us—if we dare to say so—we, who were thrust into it against our wills, and forced to suffer and see others suffer. The man who was burned at the stake, or torn in the arena by wild beasts, believed he won a crown for himself—but it was for himself.”
“What doth it profit a man,” quoted Baird, vaguely, but as if following a thought of his own, “if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”
Latimer flung back his shock of uneven black locks. His hollow eyes flashed daringly.
“What doth it profit a man,” he cried, “if he save his own soul and lose the whole world, caring nothing for its agony, making no struggle to help it in its woe and grieving? A Man once gave His life for the world. Has any man ever given his soul?”
“You go far—you go far!” exclaimed Baird, drawing a short, sharp breath.
Latimer’s deep eyes dwelt upon him woefully. “Have you known what it was to bear a heavy sin on your soul?” he asked.
“My dear fellow,” said John Baird, a little bitterly, “it is such men as I, whose temperaments—the combination of forces you say you lack—lead them to the deeds the world calls ‘heavy sins’—and into the torment of regret which follows. You can bear no such burden—you have no such regret.”
Latimer, whose elbow rested on the mantel, leaned a haggard forehead on his hand.
“I have sinned,” he said. “It was that others might be spared; but I have put my soul in peril. Perhaps it is lost—lost!”