Words of Scripture again came to his help.
"Yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul," he heard Simeon say to the mother of his Lord, and it dawned upon him that when Jesus faced the cross with its agony He must have felt through His tenderest of hearts the sword-piercing of His Mother's sorrow. Ah, yes! He caused grief. And as He took His own way to the cross He raised a standard for those who follow of pitiless separations and of broken ties, if need be, for His kingdom's sake. "If any man cometh unto Me, and, hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple."
Texts that Hubert had passed lightly before were now illuminated with meaning and power as the occasion rose for them to be translated into life. He found a rare sweetness of comfort in those which assured him that he need not fear he was out of the path of the Saviour's footprints, though he found them blood-marked or washed with many tears. He turned to some familiar words which he wished to see before him again in plain black and white. They were found toward the end of the ninth chapter of Luke.
"Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father," said one in response to his Lord's "follow me." And said Jesus, "Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom of God."
"Let the dead bury their dead!" What a strange expression, and what could it mean! Hubert pondered the text, no longer in keen agony of mind, for his distress had lightened as he saw even on the painful way the light of God's will shining. Anything could be borne, if the face of the Lord still shone upon it!
"What does it mean?" he queried in deep meditation.
Slowly a meaning, not the full one, doubtless, but suited to his need, dawned upon him. Let the spiritually dead attend to the affairs of death. Let them follow the conventional, natural round, and answer always to the cries of human love and longing. Let them keep to earthly ties and earthly work. But let the living be about the affairs of life! A ministry waits that only living hands can serve. Let filial hearts render unto earthly love that which is due, but see that thou, child of God, render also unto God the things which are God's.
"There are a thousand things," thought Hubert, "that unregenerated men can do quite as well as any. Indeed, they have an affinity with earthly things that is lacking in the heaven-born man. To trade in iron and amass wealth does not require a living man. I will let others do it. The supreme business of my Father calls, and I must be about it. But my earthly father? Shall I wait first to bury him? The Lord says, No."
Hubert studied his pattern in His life as well as words.
"He was subject to His parents," he reflected, "until the time came for His ministry and He had reached mature years of responsibility. Then, when He had entered upon His task, not even His mother's voice could turn Him from it. When His friends thought Him beside Himself, and she with them sought to take Him away from His work, He said, 'Who is My mother? . . . Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother and sister and mother.' But He still was not unfilial. When not even the thought of the sword through her heart could take Him from the cross, He made provision for her, commending her to John's faithful love."