“Same here,” said Mr. Kershaw, concisely.
“Thank you, gentlemen!” said Mr. Durnford, briskly, entering the amounts in his note book. “Now, Mr. Botterill.”
“Well,” was the reluctant response, “I suppose I shall have to follow suit.”
Mr. Durnford smiled.
“Thank you, gentlemen, all,” he said. “Keep that up, and it will afford you more pleasure than you think.”
When, shortly afterwards, the minister took his departure, the three friends resumed their smoking; but they did not return to their criticism of “the Golden Shoemaker.”
CHAPTER XXXII.
“IN LABOURS MORE ABUNDANT.”
Unlike many wealthy professors of religion, “the Golden Shoemaker” did not suppose that, in giving his money to the various funds of the church, he fulfilled, as far as he was concerned, all the claims of the Cause of Christ. He did not imagine that he could purchase, by means of his monetary gifts, exemption from the obligation to engage in active Christian work. He did not desire to be thus exempt. His greatest delight was to be directly and actively employed in serving his Divine Lord; and so little did he think of availing himself of the occasion of his sudden accession to wealth to withdraw from actual participation in the service of Christ, that he hailed with intense joy the richer opportunities of service with which he was thus supplied.