“And what is that, dear uncle?”
“The stamp of the Cross, Horace. I know that there are plenty of crosses about them,—crosses on their prayer-books, crosses round their necks, crosses on their writing-cases and on their furniture; but the Cross is wanting. In a word, they are not denying self, and seeking to do good to others from love to that Saviour who gave up so much for them. I know that they are not without religion in the eyes of the world; but I cannot, I dare not believe that they are really actuated by love to the great Master in what they may do to make others happy. Am I wrong, Horace?”
“No, uncle, I cannot say that you are. Much as I like the girls on many accounts, I should not be speaking my honest sentiments were I to say that I believed them to be doing good to others from real Christian motives. And yet—”
“Ah, my dear nephew, I know what you would say. I know that the world would embrace such as these within its elastic band as among genuine unselfish workers, though avowedly on a lower level than that adopted by the true Christian. But, after all, can God, the searcher of hearts, approve of anything as being truly unselfish which does not bear the stamp of the Cross? And can anything of which he does not approve be a reality?”
“I suppose not,” said the other reluctantly. “Still, it is difficult not to be dazzled by what looks like a reflection from the true Light; and difficult, too, to detect a sham where we are willing to see a reality.”
“Very difficult,” replied Colonel Dawson: “and yet the world abounds in shams, and cant, and hypocrisy. The world commonly lays these things at the door of religious professors; but the truth all the while is that the sham, and the cant, and the hypocrisy are really in those who take or gain credit for a character—unselfishness, for example—which is only to be found in true Christians, and hold themselves back from that genuine devotion, and self-sacrifice, and coming out to Christ, without which their boasted and lauded excellences are nothing better than a delusion and an empty name.”
The young man did not reply, and the subject was dropped for the remainder of the ride home.