As he finished the last sheet, he looked Tom Hammond hard and searchingly in the face.
“My dear Tom,” he began. His voice was very grave, very serious. “You’ll ruin The Courier! You will ruin yourself! The world will call you mad——!”
“They called my Lord mad, Ralph, and they have called His servants mad, over and over again, ever since.”
There was not a shadow of cant in his voice and manner, as he went on:—
“The word of our God, Ralph—which is the only real rule of life, tells us that Christ, whose name I profess, said:—
“‘Whosoever shall confess me, before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in Heaven.... If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life, for My sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul....
“‘For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of My words.’ (‘Surely I come quickly,’ Ralph, is one of His very last recorded words,) ‘of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when He shall come in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels.’”
Tom Hammond leant forward in his chair to lay his hand on the wrist of the other, to plead with him. But, with an exclamation of angry impatience, Ralph, cried:
“Hang it, old man, you must be going dotty!”
With an expression of annoyance, almost amounting to disgust, he swung round on his heel.