"For my sake, yea, but not acceptably Even so," said Paul; "since neither did it serve My cause, nor please me, if I speak the truth. I know thy love for me and hold it dear; All the world's gold were no exchange for it. So, doubt not, Stephen, that to what degree Love for thine uncle prompted that thy prayer, Thine uncle thanks thee for it from his heart. But let us, thou and I together both, To our own selves severely faithful be. Shall we not say that that love faulty is, Which less desires to please the one beloved, Than to indulge itself, have its own way? And knowest thou not it would have pleased me better-- Since, for the present, question is of me-- To see my nephew altogether such As I myself am, lover of all men, Hater of none, not even mine enemy? Thou didst not love me well enough for that! "Thy love though precious and though well-refined Had yet alloy in it of selfishness-- Of specious, almost lovely, selfishness, I grant thee; yea, according to the world, That loves its own illusions, lovely quite-- Of such a selfishness alloy enough To take its counsel of itself, not me, Blindly abandoned to its own excess." "The art of love thou makest difficult!" Stephen, with chastened deprecation, said. "Not 'difficult,' impossible," said Paul, "Save to whom Jesus makes it possible. I wish that I could bring thee to perceive How, severed from Him, thou canst not love at all, Right love, I mean, the one safe sense of love, Love with the gift of immortality, Since pure and perfectly-proportioned love! Left to ourselves, we love capriciously; Ever some form of fond self-love it is, Which in disguise of love to other masks. If thou in Jesus truly hadst loved me Then hadst thou loved me as I would be loved, To absolute effacement of thyself Through whole replacement of thyself with me. Enormous claim seems this of selfishness In me? But I describe ideally The love that I myself to Jesus bear. In Him I lose, and find again, my self, And the new self I find again, is--He! It is but as united thus with Him-- My wish, my will, become the same as His-- That I dare make exaction for myself Of love that seems to blot another out, Or merge him in a new and different self. I ask thee--not my will, but Christ's, made thine-- To love me with the love that pleases Him." "All this," said Stephen, "must be true, I feel-- I feel it better than I understand." "I also," Paul said, "in this mystery Am wiser with my heart than with my mind, I feel it better than I understand; Although I understand it better too Than I can make it plain in any words." Whereon in silence for a space they rode, While their thoughts ranged diverse in worlds apart.