In the morning Donal learned from Simmons that his master was very ill--could not raise his head.
"The way he do moan and cry!" said Simmons. "You would think sure he was either out of his mind, or had something heavy upon it! All the years I known him, he been like that every now an' then, and back to his old self again, little the worse! Only the fits do come oftener."
Towards the close of school, as Donal was beginning to give his lesson in religion, lady Arctura entered, and sat down beside Davie.
"What would you think of me, Davie," Donal was saying, "if I were angry with you because you did not know something I had never taught you?"
Davie only laughed. It was to him a grotesque, an impossible supposition.
"If," Donal resumed, "I were to show you a proposition of Euclid which you had never seen before, and say to you, 'Now, Davie, this is one of the most beautiful of all Euclid's propositions, and you must immediately admire it, and admire Euclid for constructing it!'--what would you say?"
Davie thought, and looked puzzled.
"But you wouldn't do it, sir!" he said. "--I know you wouldn't do it!" he added, after a moment.
"Why should I not?"
"It isn't your way, sir."
"But suppose I were to take that way?"
"You would not then be like yourself, sir!"
"Tell me how I should be unlike myself. Think."
"You would not be reasonable."
"What would you say to me?"
"I should say, 'Please, sir, let me learn the proposition first, and then I shall be able to admire it. I don't know it yet!'"
"Very good!--Now again, suppose, when you tried to learn it, you were not able to do so, and therefore could see no beauty in it--should I blame you?"
"No, sir; I am sure you would not--because I should not be to blame, and it would not be fair; and you never do what is not fair!"
"I am glad you think so: I try to be fair.--That looks as if you believed in me, Davie!"
"Of course I do, sir!"
"Why?"
"Just because you are fair."
"Suppose, Davie, I said to you, 'Here is a very beautiful thing I should like you to learn,' and you, after you had partly learned it, were to say 'I don't see anything beautiful in this: I am afraid I never shall!'--would that be to believe in me?"
"No, surely, sir! for you know best what I am able for."
"Suppose you said, 'I daresay it is all as good as you say, but I don't care to take so much trouble about it,'--what would that be?"
"Not to believe in you, sir. You would not want me to learn a thing that was not worth my trouble, or a thing I should not be glad of knowing when I did know it."
"Suppose you said, 'Sir, I don't doubt what you say, but I am so tired, I don't mean to do anything more you tell me,'--would you then be believing in me?"
"No. That might be to believe your word, but it would not be to trust you. It would be to think my thinks better than your thinks, and that would be no faith at all."
Davie had at times an oddly childish way of putting things.
"Suppose you were to say nothing, but go away and do nothing of what I told you--what would that be?"
"Worse and worse; it would be sneaking."
"One question more: what is faith--the big faith I mean--not the little faith between equals--the big faith we put in one above us?"
"It is to go at once and do the thing he tells us to do."
"If we don't, then we haven't faith in him?"
"No; certainly not."
"But might not that be his fault?"
"Yes--if he was not good--and so I could not trust him. If he said I was to do one kind of thing, and he did another kind of thing himself, then of course I could not have faith in him."
"And yet you might feel you must do what he told you!"
"Yes."
"Would that be faith in him?"
"No."
"Would you always do what he told you?"
"Not if he told me to do what it would be wrong to do."
"Now tell me, Davie, what is the biggest faith of all--the faith to put in the one only altogether good person."
"You mean God, Mr. Grant?"
"Whom else could I mean?"
"You might mean Jesus."
"They are one; they mean always the same thing, do always the same thing, always agree. There is only one thing they don't do the same in--they do not love the same person."
"What do you mean, Mr. Grant?" interrupted Arctura.
She had been listening intently: was the cloven foot of Mr. Grant's heresy now at last about to appear plainly?
"I mean this," answered Donal, with a smile that seemed to Arctura such a light as she had never seen on human face, "--that God loves Jesus, not God; and Jesus loves God, not Jesus. We love one another, not ourselves--don't we, Davie?"
"You do, Mr. Grant," answered Davie modestly.
"Now tell me, Davie, what is the great big faith of all--that which we have to put in the Father of us, who is as good not only as thought can think, but as good as heart can wish--infinitely better than anybody but Jesus Christ can think--what is the faith to put in him?"
"Oh, it is everything!" answered Davie.
"But what first?" asked Donal.
"First, it is to do what he tells us."
"Yes, Davie: it is to learn his problems by going and doing his will; not trying to understand things first, but trying first to do things. We must spread out our arms to him as a child does to his mother when he wants her to take him; then when he sets us down, saying, 'Go and do this or that,' we must make all the haste in us to go and do it. And when we get hungry to see him, we must look at his picture."
"Where is that, sir?"
"Ah, Davie, Davie! don't you know that yet? Don't you know that, besides being himself, and just because he is himself, Jesus is the living picture of God?"
"I know, sir! We have to go and read about him in the book."
"May I ask you a question, Mr. Grant?" said Arctura.
