“Then haven't we got to pray for anything more?”
“We'll soon find out; but first we must look for something to do!”
They began at once to search for things the Lord told them to do. And of all they found, the plainest and easiest was: “Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” This needed no explanation! it was as clear as the day to both of them!
The very next morning the school-master, who, though of a gentle disposition, was irritable, taking Andrew for the offender in a certain breach of discipline, gave him a smart box on the ear. Andrew, as readily as if it had been instinctively, turned to him the other cheek.
An angry man is an evil interpreter of holy things, and Mr. Fordyce took the action for one of rudest mockery, nor thought of the higher master therein mocked if it were mockery: he struck the offender a yet smarter blow. Andrew stood for a minute like one dazed; but the red on his face was not that of anger; he was perplexed as to whether he ought now to turn the former cheek again to the striker. Uncertain, he turned away, and went to his work.
Stops a reader here to say: “But do you really mean to tell us we ought to take the words literally as Andrew did?” I answer: “When you have earned the right to understand, you will not need to ask me. To explain what the Lord means to one who is not obedient, is the work of no man who knows his work.”
It is but fair to say for the school-master that, when he found he had mistaken, he tried to make up to the boy for it—not by confessing himself wrong—who could expect that of only a school-master?—but by being kinder to him than before. Through this he came to like him, and would teach him things out of the usual way—such as how to make different kinds of verse.
By and by Andrew and Sandy had a quarrel. Suddenly Andrew came to himself, and cried:
“Sandy! Sandy! He says we're to agree!”
“Does He?”