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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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358 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 comprehended them. I understood that, sitting there where I did, on the bank of heath, and with that handsome form before me, I sat at the feet of a man, erring as I. The veil fell from his hardness and despotism. Having felt in him the presence of these qualities, I felt his imperfection and took courage. I was with an equal-one with whom I might argue-one whom, if I saw good, I might resist. He was silent after I had uttered the last sentence, and I presently risked an upward glance at his countenance. His eye, bent on me, expressed at once stern surprise and keen inquiry. ‘Is she sarcastic, and sarcastic to me!’ it seemed to say. ‘What does this signify?’ ‘Do not let us forget that this is a solemn matter,’ he said ere long; ‘one of which we may neither think nor talk lightly without sin. I trust, Jane, you are in earnest when you say you will give your heart to God: it is all I want. Once wrench your heart from man, and fix it on your Maker, the advancement of that Maker’s spiritual kingdom on earth will be your chief delight and endeavour; you will be ready to do at once whatever furthers that end. You will see what impetus would be given to your efforts and mine by our physical and mental union in marriage: the only |
