"You refer to Felix Muller? Well, yes. Muller has been a very good friend to me. But when it comes to business, like the rest of them, he will have his pound of flesh."
"Ah, well!" the old man answered, with a sigh. "It's a sad world. Though many may be called, few are chosen, and Satan must work his will till the appointed time."
"He seems to have had a pretty long innings," Rufus said, with a laugh.
"And yet, beyond his chain he cannot go," the old man answered. And then supper was brought on to the table.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE OLD AND THE NEW
Rufus awoke next morning to the sound of Christmas bells ringing wildly down the valley and out across the hills. It was a pleasant sound, and awoke many tender memories in his heart. Instinctively his thoughts turned back to the Gospel story, and to the Christ who had changed the history of the world. Whatever might be said of the doctrines and dogmas that his grandfather had preached for fifty years with so much vehemence and energy, there could be no doubt as to the ethical value of Christ's life and sayings.
He had not looked into the New Testament for a good many years now, but it suddenly occurred to him that it was scarcely fair to hold Christ responsible for all the foolish things done and taught in His name. He recalled without effort whole paragraphs of the Sermon on the Mount, for he had been compelled, as a boy, to get off whole chapters both of the Old and New Testament by heart, and he felt that nothing nobler had been taught in all the history of the world. Besides all that, there was something infinitely beautiful and touching in the tragedy of Christ's life and death. He was a martyr for scorned ideals. He gave up his life rather than compromise with evil, or be a party to the hypocrisies of His time. He was, undoubtedly, the friend of the poor, and outcast, and oppressed, and was the only religious man of His time who had the courage to speak a kind word to publicans and harlots.