He stood in front of her and put on a serious face,
“What’s this I am hearing, Miss Lennox,” said he, “about a little girl who doesn’t know a lot of things nice little girls ought to know?”
“Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever,” repeated Bud reflectively. “I’ve got that all right, but what does it mean?”
“What does it mean?” said Mr Dyce, a bit taken aback. “You tell her, Bell; what does it mean? I must not be late for the court.”
“You’re far cleverer than I am,” said Bell. “Tell her yourself.”
“It means,” said Daniel Dyce the lawyer, seating himself on the sofa beside his niece, “that man in himself is a gey poor soul, no’ worth a pin, though he’s apt to think the world was made for his personal satisfaction. At the best he’s but an instrument—a harp of a thousand strings God bends to hear in His leisure. He made that harp—the heart and mind of man—when He was in a happy hour. Strings hale and strings broken, strings slack or tight, there are all kinds of them; the best we can do’s to be taut and trembling for the gladness of God Who loves fine music, and set the stars themselves to singing from the very day He put them birling in the void. To glorify’s to wonder and adore, and who keeps the wondering humble heart, the adoring eye, is to God pleasing exceedingly. Sing, lassie, sing, sing, sing, inside ye, even if ye are as timmer as a cask. God knows I have not much of a voice myself, but I’m full of nobler airs than ever crossed my rusty thrapple. To be grateful always, and glad things are no worse, is a good song to start the morning.”
“Ah, but sin, Dan, sin!” said Bell, sighing, for she always feared her own light-heartedness. “We may be too joco.”
“Say ye so?” he cried, turning to his sister with a flame upon his visage. “By the heavens above us, no! Sin might have been eternal; each abominable thought might have kept in our minds, constant day and night from the moment that it bred there; the theft we did might keep everlastingly our hand in our neighbour’s kist as in a trap; the knife we thrust with might have kept us thrusting for ever and for ever. But no,—God’s good! sleep comes, and the clean morning, and the morning is Christ, and every moment of time is a new opportunity to amend. It is not sin that is eternal, it is righteousness, and peace. Joco! We cannot be too joco, having our inheritance.”
He stopped suddenly, warned by a glance of his sister’s, and turned to look in his niece’s face to find bewilderment there. The mood that was not often published by Dan Dyce left him in a flash, and he laughed and put his arms round her.
“I hope you’re a lot wiser for my sermon, Bud,” said he; “I can see you have pins and needles worse than under the Reverend Mr Frazer on the Front. What’s the American for haivers—for foolish speeches?”