第46章 Losing One Friend to Gain Another (2)

"That would not greatly matter," said Charles Osmond."It would be a mere sting for the moment.It is not what men call us that we have to consider, but how we are fulfilling the work God has given us to do.""'Pon my life, it makes me feel sick to hear you talk like this about that miserable Raeburn!" exclaimed Mr.Roberts, hotly."Itell you, Osmond, that you are ruining your reputation, losing all chance of preferment, just because of this mistaken zeal.It makes me furious to think that such a man as you should suffer for such a creature as Raeburn.""Have you forgotten that such creatures as you and I and Luke Raeburn had such a Saviour as Jesus Christ? Come, Roberts, in your heart you know you agree with me.If one is indeed our Father, then indeed we are all brethren.""I do not hold with you!" retorted Mr.Roberts, the more angrily because he had really hoped to convince his friend."I wouldn't sit in the same room with the fellow if you offered me the richest living in England.I wouldn't shake hands with him to be made an archbishop.I wouldn't touch him with a pair of tongs.""Even less charitable than St.Dunstan to the devil," said Charles Osmond, smiling a little, but sadly."Except in that old legend, however, I don't think Christianity ever mentions tongs.If you can't love your enemies, and pray for them, and hold out a brotherly hand to them, perhaps it were indeed better to hold aloof and keep as quiet as you can.""It is clearly impossible for us to work together any longer, Osmond," said Mr.Roberts, rising."I am sorry that such a cause should separate us, but if you will persist in visiting an outcast of society, a professed atheist, the most bitter enemy of our church, I cannot allow my name to be associated with yours it is impossible that I should hold office under you."So the two friends parted.

Charles Osmond was human, and almost inevitably a sort of reaction began in his mind the instant he was alone.He had lost one of his best friends, he knew as well as possible that they could never be on the same footing as before.He had, moreover, lost in him a valuable co-worker.Then, too, it was true enough that his defense of Raeburn was bringing him into great disfavor with the religious world, and he was a sensitive and naturally a proud man, who found blame, and reproach, and contemptuous disapproval very hard to bear.Years of hard fighting, years of patient imitation of Christ had wonderfully ennobled him, but he had not yet attained to the sublime humility which, being free from all thought of self, cares nothing, scarcely even pauses to think of the world's judgment, too absorbed in the work of the Highest to have leisure for thought of the lowest, too full of love for the race to have love to spare for self.To this ideal he was struggling, but he had not yet reached it, and the thought of his own reputation, his own feelings would creep in.He was not a selfishly ambitious man, but every one who is conscious of ability, every one who feels within him energies lying fallow for want of opportunity, must be ambitious for a larger sphere of work.Just as he was beginning to dare to allow himself the hope of some change in his work, some wider field, just as he was growing sure enough of himself to dare to accept any greater work which might have been offered to him, he must, by bringing himself into evil repute, lose every chance of preferment.And for what? For attempting to obtain a just judgment for the enemy of his faith; for holding out a brotherly hand to a man who might very probably not care to take it; for consorting with those who would at best regard him as an amiable fanatic.Was this worth all it would cost? Could the exceedingly problematical gain make up for the absolutely certain loss?

He took up the day's newspaper.His eye was at once attracted to a paragraph headed: "Mr.Raeburn at Longstaff." The report, sent from the same source as the report in the "Longstaff Mercury,"which had so greatly displeased Raeburn that morning, struck Charles Osmond in a most unfavorable light.This bitter opponent of Christianity, this unsparing denouncer of all that he held most sacred, THIS was the man for whom he was sacrificing friendship, reputation, advancement.A feeling of absolute disgust rose within him.For a moment the thought came: "I can't have any more to do with the man."But he was too honest not to detect almost at once his own Pharisaical, un-Christlike spirit.

"Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus."He had been selfishly consulting his own happiness, his own ease.

Worse still, he, of all men in the world, had dared to set himself up as too virtuous forsooth to have anything to do with an atheist.

Was that the mind which was in Christ? Was He a strait-laced, self-righteous Pharisee, too good, too religious to have anything to say to those who disagreed with Him? Did He not live and die for those who are yet enemies to God? Was not the work of reconciliation the work he came for? Did He calculate the loss to Himself, the risk of failure? Ah, no, those who would imitate God must first give as a free gift, without thought of self, perfect love to all, perfect justice through that love, or else they are not like the Father who "maketh His sun to shine on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."Charles Osmond paced to and fro, the look of trouble gradually passing from his face.Presently he paused beside the open window;it looked upon the little back garden, a tiny strip of ground, indeed, but just now bright with sunshine and fresh with the beauty of early summer.The sunshine seemed to steal into his heart as he prayed.