“You may if you like, sir,” answered Joe, a little sulkily. But I was not to be repelled.
I stood up in the sunlight, so that my eyes caught only about half the sun’s disc. Then I bent my face towards the earth.
“What part of me is the light shining on now, Joe?”
“Just the top of your head,” answered he.
“There, then,” I returned, “that is just what you are like—a man with the light on his head, but not on his face. And why not on your face? Because you hold your head down.”
“Isn’t it possible, sir, that a man might lose the light on his face, as you put it, by doing his duty?”
“That is a difficult question,” I replied. “I must think before I answer it.”
“I mean,” added Joe—“mightn’t his duty be a painful one?”
“Yes. But I think that would rather etherealise than destroy the light. Behind the sorrow would spring a yet greater light from the very duty itself. I have expressed myself badly, but you will see what I mean.—To be frank with you, Joe, I do not see that light in your face. Therefore I think something must be wrong with you. Remember a good man is not necessarily in the right. St. Peter was a good man, yet our Lord called him Satan—and meant it of course, for he never said what he did not mean.”
“How can I be wrong when all my trouble comes from doing my duty—nothing else, as far as I know?”