Miss Frere looked bewildered, Mrs. Dallas impatient. She restrained herself, however, and waited. Pitt smiled.
'We pay money to support ministers and teachers. What do the ministers work with? what do they trade with?'
'The truth, I suppose.'
'And how do they make the truth known? By their lips, and by their lives; the power of the word, with the power of personal influence.'
'Yes,' said Miss Frere; 'of course.'
'Then the goods, or talents, so far as they are commonly possessed, and so far as we have discovered, are three: property, speech, and personal example. But the two last are entrusted to you and me, are they not, as well as the former?'
The girl looked at him now with big eyes, in which no shadow of self-consciousness was any more lurking. Eyes that were bewildered, astonished, inquiring, and also disturbed. 'What do you mean?' she said helplessly.
'It comes to this,' said Pitt. 'If we are ready to obey the Bible, we shall use not only our money, but our tongues and ourselves to do the work which—you know—the Lord left to His disciples to do; make disciples of every creature. It will be our one business.'
'How do you mean, our one business?'
'That to which we make all others subservient.'