ist," he presently
went on;--"it ensures some kind and degree of persecution."

"Do you think so?" said Eleanor; "in these days? Why, it is thought
praiseworthy and honourable, is it not, through all the land, to be
good? to be a member of the Church, and to fulfil the requirements of
religion? Does anybody lose respect or liking from such a cause?"

"No. But he suffers persecution. My dear friend, what are the
'requirements of religion?' We are just considering them. Can you
remember a servant of Christ, such as we have seen the name means, in
your knowledge, whom the world allowed to live in peace?"

Eleanor was silent.

"'Remember the word that I said unto you, the servant is not greater
than his Lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute
you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.'"

"But in _these_ days, Mr. Rhys?" said Eleanor doubtfully.

"I can only say, that if you are of the world, the world will love his
own. I know no other way of securing that result. 'Because ye are not
of the world,' Jesus said, 'but I have chosen you out of the world,
therefore the world hateth you.' And it is declared, elsewhere, that
all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Can
you remember any instance to the contrary?"

Eleanor looked up and gave Mr. Rhys a good view of her honest eyes;
they looked very intent now and somewhat sorrowful.

"Mr. Rhys, except in Plassy, I do not know such a person as you ask me
about."

"Is it possible!" he said.

"Mr. Rhys, I was thinking the servants of Christ have good need of that
'helmet of salvation' I used to wish for."

"Well, they have it!" he said brightly. "'If any man serve me, let him
follow me; _and where I am, there shall also my servant be_.' That is
the end of all. But there is another point of service that occurs to
me. We have seen that we must not lease ourselves; I recollect that in
another place Paul says that if he pleased men, he would not be the
servant of Christ. There is a point where he and the world would come
in contact of opposition."

"But I thought we ought to please everybody as much as we could?"

He smiled, put his hand over and turned two or three leaves of the
Bible which she kept open at the first of Romans, and pointed to a word
in the fifteenth chapter. "Let every one of us please his neighbour for
his good, to edification."

"There is your limit," said he. "So far thou mayest go, but n