Christian fiction; Wingfold, Thomas (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
“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
gate-keeper 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.”
The little prophet’s head as he stood, did not reach the level of the
draper’s as he sat, but at 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 so doing you will be saved from growing too rich, and
that you will be a fellow-worker with God for the salvation of his
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 the 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?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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