nce Williams died, have handsome clothes for Sundays, and
save a trifle every week.

_Stock._ Very true, and very laudable it is; and to all this you may
add that you very generously work an hour for poor Tommy's
education, every evening without fee or reward.

_Will._ Well, master, what can a man do more? If all this is not
being good, I don't know what is.

_Stock._ All these things are very right, as far as they go, and you
could not well be a Christian without doing them. But I shall make
you stare, perhaps, when I tell you, you may do all these things,
and many more, and yet be no Christian.

_Will._ No Christian! Surely, master, I do hope that after all I
have done, you will not be so unkind as to say I am no Christian?

_Stock._ God forbid that I should say so, Will. I hope better things
of you. But come now, what do you think it is to be a Christian?

_Will._ What! why to be christened when one is a child; to learn the
catechism when one can read; to be confirmed when one is a youth;
and to go to church when one is a man.

_Stock._ These are all very proper things, and quite necessary.
They make part of a Christian's life. But for all that, a man may be
exact in them all, and yet not be a Christian.

_Will._ Not be a Christian! ha! ha! ha! you are very comical,
master.

_Stock._ No, indeed, I am very serious, Will. At this rate it would
be a very easy thing to be a Christian, and every man who went
through certain forms would be a good man; and one man who observed
those forms would be as good as another. Whereas, if we come to
examine ourselves by the word of God, I am afraid there are but few
comparatively whom our Saviour would allow to be real Christians.
What is your notion of a Christian's practice?

_Will._ Why, he must not rob, nor murder, nor get drunk. He must
avoid scandalous things, and do as other decent orderly people do.

_Stock._ It is easy enough to be what the world calls a Christian,
but not to be what the Bible calls so.

_Will._ Why, master, we working men are not expected to be saints,
and martyrs, and apostles, and ministers.

Stock. We are not. And yet, Will, there are not two sorts of
Christianity; we are called to practice the same religion which they
practiced, and something of the same spirit is expected in us which
we reverence in them. It was not saints and martyrs only to whom our
Saviour said that they must _crucify the world, with its affections
and lusts_. We ar