"I have been trying hard to follow you, Mr. Polwarth," said the draper, after his host had for a while had the talk to himself, "but I cannot get hold of your remarks. One moment I think I have got the end of the clue, and the next I find myself abroad again. Would you tell me what you mean by divine service? for I think you must use the phrase in some different sense from what I have been accustomed to."
"Ah! I ought to remember," said Polwarth, "that what has grown familiar to my mind from much solitary thinking, may not at once show itself to another when presented in the forms of a foreign individuality. I ought to have premised that, when I use the phrase divine service, I mean nothing whatever belonging to the church or its observances. I mean by it what it ought to mean--the serving of God; the doing of something for God. Shall I make of the church, in my foolish imaginations, a temple of idolatrous worship by supposing that it is for the sake of supplying some need that God has, or of gratifying some taste in him, that I there listen to his word, say prayers to him, and sing his praises? Shall I be such a dull mule in the presence of the living Truth? Or, to use a homely simile, shall I be as the good boy of the nursery-rhyme, who, seated in his corner of selfish complacency, regards the eating of his pie as a virtuous action, enjoys the contemplation of it, and thinks what a pleasing object he thus makes of himself to his parents? Shall I, to take a step father, degrade the sanctity of the closet, hallowed in the words of Jesus, by shutting its door in the vain fancy of there doing something that God requires of me as a sacred observance? Shall I foolishly imagine that to put in exercise the highest and loveliest, the most entrancing privilege of existence, that of pouring forth my whole heart into the heart of him who is accountable for me, who hath glorified me with his own image--... shall I say that that is to do anything for God? Was I serving my father when I ate the dinner he provided for me? Am I serving my God when I eat his bread and drink his wine?"
"But," said Drew, "is not God pleased that a man should pour out his soul to him?"
"Yes, doubtless; but what would you think of a child who said, `I am very useful to my father, for when I ask him for anything, or tell him I love him, it gives him, oh! such pleasure'?"
"I should say he was an unendurable prig. Better he had to be whipped for stealing!" said the curate.
"There would be more hope of his future," returned Polwarth. "Is the child," he continued, "who sits by his father's knee and looks up into his father's face, serving that father because the heart of the father delights to look down upon his child? And shall the moment of my deepest repose and bliss, the moment when I serve myself with the very life of the universe, be called a serving of my God?" ...
"When my child would serve me," he went on, "he spies out some need I have, springs from his seat at my knee, finds that which will meet my necessity, and is my eager happy servant, of consequence in his own eyes inasmuch as he has done something for his father. His seat by my knee is love, delight, well-being, peace--not service, however pleasing in my eyes. `Why do you seat yourself at my knee, my son?' `To please you, father.' `Nay, then, my son! go from me, and come again when it shall be to please thyself.'--`Why do you cling to my chair, my daughter?' `Because I want to be near you, father. It makes me so happy!' `Come nearer still--come to my bosom, my child, and be yet happier.'--Talk not of public worship as divine service: it is a mockery. Search the prophets, and you will find the observances, fasts and sacrifices and solemn feasts, of the temple by them regarded with loathing and scorn just because by the people they were regarded as divine service."
"But," said Mr. Drew, while Wingfold turned towards him with some anxiety lest he should break the mood of the little prophet, "I can't help thinking I have you; for how are poor creatures like us--weak, blundering creatures, sometimes most awkward when best-intentioned--how are we to minister to a perfect God--perfect in wisdom, strength, and everything--of whom Paul says that he is not worshipped with men's hands as though he needed anything? I cannot help thinking that you are fighting merely with a word. Certainly, if the phrase ever was used in that sense, there is no meaning of the kind attached to it now; it stands merely for the forms of public worship."
"Were there no such thing as Divine Service in the true sense of the word, then indeed it would scarcely be worth while to quarrel with its misapplication. But I assert that true and genuine service may be rendered to the living God; and for the development of the divine nature in man, it is necessary that he should do something for God. Nor is it hard to discover how; for God is in every creature that he has made, and in their needs he is needy, and in all their afflictions he is afflicted. Therefore Jesus says that whatever is done to one of his little ones is done to him. And if the soul of a man be the temple of the Spirit, then is the place of that man's labour--his shop, his counting-house, his laboratory--the temple of Jesus Christ, where the spirit of the man is incarnate in work. Mr. Drew!"--here the gatekeeper [Polwarth] stood up and held out both his hands, palms upward, towards the draper on the other side of the table--"Mr. Drew! your shop is the temple of your service where the Lord Christ, the only image of the Father, is, or ought to be, throned; your counter is, or ought to be, his altar; and everything thereon laid, with intent of doing as well as you can for your neighbour, in the name of the man Christ Jesus, is a true sacrifice offered to him, a service done to the eternal creating Love of the universe."
... [A]t this Drew dropped his head on his hands upon the table as if bowed down by a weight of thought and feeling and worship.
"I say not," Polwarth went on, "That so doing you will grow a rich man, but I say that by so doing you will be saved from growing too rich, and that you will be a fellow-worker with God for the salvation of the world."
"I must live; I cannot give my goods away!" murmured Mr. Drew thinkingly, as one that sought enlightenment.
"That would be to go direct against the order of his world," said Polwarth. "No; a harder task is yours, Mr. Drew--to make your business a gain to you, and at the same time to be not only what is commonly counted just, but interested in, and careful of, and caring for your neighbour, as a servant of the God of bounty who giveth to all men liberally. Your calling is to do your best for your neighbour that you reasonably can."
"But who is to fix what is reasonable?" asked Drew.
"The man himself, thinking in the presence of Jesus Christ. There is a holy moderation which is of God."
"There won't be many fortunes--great fortunes--made after that rule, Mr. Polwarth."
"Very few."
"Then do you say that no great fortunes have been righteously made?"
"If righteously means after the fashion of Jesus Christ--But I will not judge: that is for the God-enlightened conscience of the man himself to do, not for his neighbour's. Why should I be judged by another man's conscience? But you see, Mr. Drew--and this is what I was driving at--you have it in your power to serve God through the needs of his children all the working day, from morning to night, so long as there is a customer in your shop."