as put your hand to the plough: you are too consistent to withdraw it. You have but one end to keep in view- how the work you have undertaken can best be done. Simplify your complicated interests, feelings, thoughts, wishes, aims; merge all considerations in one purpose: that of fulfilling with effect- with power- the mission of your great Master. To do so, you must have a coadjutor: not a brother- that is a loose tie- but a husband. I, too, do not want a sister: a sister might any day be taken from me.
I want a wife: the sole helpmeet I can influence efficiently in life, and retain absolutely till death.'
I shuddered as he spoke: I felt his influence in my marrow- his hold on my limbs.
'Seek one elsewhere than in me, St. John: seek one fitted to you.'
'One fitted to my purpose, you mean- fitted to my vocation. Again I tell you it is not the insignificant private individual- the mere man, with the man's selfish senses- I wish to mate: it is the missionary.'
'And I will give the missionary my energies- it is all he wants- but not myself: that would be only adding the husk and shell to the kernel. For them he has no use: I retain them.'
'You cannot- you ought not. Do you think God will be satisfied with half an oblation? Will He accept a mutilated sacrifice? It is the cause of God I advocate: it is under His standard I enlist you. I cannot accept on His behalf a divided allegiance: it must be entire.'
'Oh! I will give my heart to God,' I said. 'You do not want it.'
I will not swear, reader, that there was not something of repressed sarcasm both in the tone in which I uttered this sentence, and in the feeling that accompanied it. I had silently feared St. John till now, because I had not understood him. He had held me in awe, because he had held me in doubt. How much of him was saint, how much mortal, I could not heretofore tell: but revelations were being made in this conference: the analysis of his nature was proceeding before my eyes. I saw his fallibilities: I com
本章未完，点击下一页继续阅读。