What would you do, my lord, if you saw your
son strike a woman?"
"Knock him down and horsewhip him."
It was Mr Graham who broke the silence that followed.
"Are you satisfied with yourself, my lord?"
"No, by God!"
"You would like to be better?"
"I would."
"Then you are of the same mind with God."
"Yes but I'm not a fool! It won't do to say I should like to be:
I must be it, and that's not so easy. It's damned hard to be good.
I would have a fight for it, but there's no time. How is a poor
devil to get out of such an infernal scrape?"
"Keep the commandments."
"That's it, of course; but there's no time, I tell you--at least
so those cursed doctors will keep telling me."
"If there were but time to draw another breath, there would be time
to begin."
"How am I to begin? Which am I to begin with?"
"There is one commandment which includes all the rest."
"Which is that?"
"To believe on the Lord Jesus Christ."
"That's cant."
"After thirty years' trial of it, it is to me the essence of
wisdom. It has given me a peace which makes life or death all but
indifferent to me, though I would choose the latter."
"What am I to believe about him then?"
"You are to believe in him, not about him."
"I don't understand."
"He is our Lord and Master, Elder Brother, King, Saviour, the
divine Man, the human God: to believe in him is to give ourselves
up to him in obedience, to search out his will and do it."
"But there's no time, I tell you again," the marquis almost shrieked.
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