St. John said these words as he pronounced his sermons, with a
quiet, deep voice; with an unflushed cheek, and a coruscating
radiance of glance. He resumed "And since I am myself poor and obscure, I can offer you but a
service of poverty and obscurity. YOU may even think it degrading--
for I see now your habits have been what the world calls refined:
your tastes lean to the ideal, and your society has at least been
amongst the educated; but I consider that no service degrades which
can better our race. I hold that the more arid and unreclaimed the
soil where the Christian labourer's task of tillage is appointed
him--the scantier the meed his toil brings--the higher the honour.
His, under such circumstances, is the destiny of the pioneer; and
the first pioneers of the Gospel were the Apostles--their captain
was Jesus, the Redeemer, Himself."
"Well?" I said, as he again paused--"proceed."
He looked at me before he proceeded: indeed, he seemed leisurely to
read my face, as if its features and lines were characters on a
page. The conclusions drawn from this scrutiny he partially
expressed in his succeeding observations.
"I believe you will accept the post I offer you," said he, "and hold
it for a while: not permanently, though: any more than I could
permanently keep the narrow and narrowing--the tranquil, hidden
office of English country incumbent; for in your nature is an alloy
as detrimental to repose as that in mine, though of a different
kind."
"Do explain," I urged, when he halted once more.
"I will; and you shall hear how poor the proposal is,--how trivial--
how cramping. I shall not stay long at Morton, now that my father
is dead, and that I am my own master. I shall leave the place
probably in the course of a twelve-month; but while I do stay, I
will exert myself to the utmost for its improvement. Morton, when I
came to it two years ago, had no school: the children of the poor
were excluded from every hope of progress. I established one for
boys: I mean now to open a second school for girls. I have hired a
building for the purpose, with a cottage of two rooms attached to it
for the mistress's house. Her salary will be thirty pounds a year:
her house is already furnished, very simply, but sufficiently, by
the kindness of a lady, Miss Oliver; the only daughter of the sole
rich man in my parish--Mr. Oliver, the proprietor of a needle-
factory and iron-foundry in the valley. The same lady pays for the
education and clothing of an orphan from the workhouse, on condition
that she shall aid the mistress in such menial offices connected
with her own house and the school as her occupation of teaching will
prevent her having time to discharge in person. Will you be this
mistress?"