life--as the cost of their following. They would begin by a secret
taking leave, don't you see?'

'But the times are not such now,' Miss Frere ventured.

Pitt did not answer. He sat looking at the open page of his Bible,
evidently at work with the problem suggested there. The two women
looked at him; and his mother got rid as unobtrusively as possible of a
vexed and hot tear that would come.

'Mr. Dallas,' Miss Frere urged again, 'these are not times of
persecution any more. We can be Christians--disciples--and retain all
our friends and possessions; can we not?'

'Can we without "taking leave" of them?'

'Certainly. I think so.'

'I do not see it!' he said, after another pause. 'Do you think anybody
will be content to put self nowhere, as Christ did, giving up his whole
life and strength--and means--to the help and service of his fellow
men, _unless_ he has come to that mental attitude we were speaking of?
No, it seems to me, and the more I think of it the more it seems to me,
that to follow Christ means to give up seeking honour or riches or
pleasure, except so far as they may be sought and used in His service.
I mean _for_ His service. All I read in the Bible is in harmony with
that view.'

'But how comes it then that nobody takes it,' said Miss Frere uneasily.

'I suppose,' said Pitt slowly, 'for the same reason that has kept me
for years from accepting it;--because it was so difficult.'

'But religion cannot be a difficult thing, my dear son,' said Mrs.
Dallas.

He looked up at her and smiled, an affectionate, very expressive,
wistful smile.

'Can it not, mother? What mean Christ's words here,--"Whosoever doth
not _take up his cross_ and follow me, he cannot be my disciple"? The
cross meant shame, torture, and death, in those days; and I think in a
modified way, it means the same thing now. It means something.'

'But Mr. Pitt, you do not answer my argument,' Miss Frere repeated. 'If
this view is correct, how comes it that nobody takes it but you?'

'Your argument is where the dew is after a hot sun,--nowhere. Instead
of nobody taking this view, it has been held by hundreds of thousands,
who, like the first disciples, _have_ forsaken all and followed Him.
Rather than be false to it they have endured the loss of all things,
they have given up father and mother, they have borne torture and faced
the lions. In later days, they have been chased and worried from
hiding-place to hiding-place, they have b