"Ah!" said the curate to himself, "if I had but seen him, would not
I have minded him!--would I not have haunted his steps, with
question upon question, until I got at the truth!"
Again the more definite thought vanished in the seething chaos of
reverie, which dured unbroken for a time,--until again suddenly rose
from memory to consciousness and attention the words: "Why call ye
me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?"
"Good God!" he exclaimed, "here am I bothering over words, and
questioning about this and that, as if I were testing his fitness
for a post I had to offer him, and he all the time claiming my
obedience! I cannot even, on the spur of the moment at least, tell
one thing he wants me to do; and as to doing anything because he
told me--not once did I ever! But then how am I to obey him until I
am sure of his right to command? I just want to know whether I am to
call him Lord or not. No, that won't do either, for he says, Why
even of yourselves judge ye not what is right? And do I not
know--have I ever even doubted that what he said we ought to do was
the right thing to do? Yet here have I, all these years, been
calling myself a Christian, ministering, forsooth, in the temple of
Christ, as if he were a heathen divinity, who cared for songs and
prayers and sacrifices, and cannot honestly say I ever once in my
life did a thing because he said so, although the record is full of
his earnest, even pleading words! I have NOT been an honest man, and
how should a dishonest man be a judge over that man who said he was
the Christ of God? Would it be any wonder if the things he uttered
should be too high and noble to be by such a man recognized as
truth?"
With this, yet another saying dawned upon, him: IF ANY MAN WILL DO
HIS WILL, HE SHALL KNOW OF THE DOCTRINE, WHETHER IT BE OF GOD, OR
WHETHER I SPEAK OF MYSELF.
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