“It may be a bad thing to love, but it’s a good thing to have,” he said, one day, to the little rector, as this friend stood by him at a corner of the high desk where Richling was posting his ledger.
“But not to seek,” said the rector.
Richling posted an item and shook his head doubtingly.
“That depends, I should say, on how much one seeks it, and how much of it he seeks.”
“No,” insisted the clergyman. Richling bent a look of inquiry upon him, and he added:—
“The principle is bad, and you know it, Richling. ‘Seek ye first’—you know the text, and the assurance that follows with it—‘all these things shall be added’”—
“Oh, yes; but still”—
“‘But still!’” exclaimed the little preacher; “why must everybody say ‘but still’? Don’t you see that that ‘but still’ is the refusal of Christians to practise Christianity?”
Richling looked, but said nothing; and his friend hoped the word had taken effect. But Richling was too deeply bitten to be cured by one or two good sayings. After a moment he said:—
“I used to wonder to see nearly everybody struggling to be rich, but I don’t now. I don’t justify it, but I understand it. It’s flight from oblivion. It’s the natural longing to be seen and felt.”