Mrs Inglis smiled as though she would have said, “There are not many like my Davie.” But she looked grave in a minute and said—
“There is one thing in which you differ. Davie is an avowed servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. He professes to desire to live no longer to himself, but to Him.”
“And you think that is everything, Aunt Mary?”
“I think it is the chief thing.”
“Well, I am not like that. I am very far from that.”
“But this ought to be the chief thing for you as well as for David, ought it not?”
“I have not thought about it, Aunt Mary.”
“You have not taken time. You have fallen on easy days hitherto. It would have been difficult to convince you that, to be a servant of God, a follower of the Lord Jesus is the chief thing—the only thing, while each day brought with it enough to satisfy you. This trouble, which has come upon you all, may have been needed—to make you think about it.”
Philip answered nothing, but sat gazing at the clouds, or at the leaves which rustled at the window, with his cheek upon his hand. There is a time to keep silence and a time to speak, and Mrs Inglis could not be sure on which of these she had fallen. She longed to say just the right word to him, but hitherto her words had fallen like water on the rock, which, in the first gleam of sunshine, disappears. He always listened, grave or smiling, as the occasion seemed to demand. He listened with eagerness, pleased at her interest in him, pleased to be treated like one of the children, to be praised or chidden, and, for all that she could see, as well pleased with the one as with the other. As she sat watching him in silence, Mrs Inglis thought of Violet’s complaint against him. “He is not in earnest. He cares only for his own pleasure.”
“Ah! well! The Master knows how to deal with him, though I do not,” she said to herself. Aloud, she said, “You must not suppose that I mean that religion is for a time of trouble, more than for a time of prosperity. It is the chief thing always—the only thing. But, in a time of trouble, our need of something beyond what is in ourselves, or in the world, is brought home to us. Philip, dear lad, it is a wonderful thing to be a soldier and servant of the Lord Jesus. It is a service which satisfies—which ennobles. All else may fail us, or fetter us, or lead us astray. But, belonging to Christ—being one with Him—nothing can harm us truly. Are you to lose all this, Philip? Letting it pass by you—not thinking about it?”