The time was
when I thought it a mark of superior intellect and refinement to be as
exclusive in my friendships as in my theories. Now I have learnt that that
is most spiritual and noble which is also most universal. If we are to call
each other friends, it must be for a reason which equally includes the
outcast and the profligate, the felon, and the slave."
"What do you mean?" I asked, half disappointed.
"Only for the sake of Him who died for all alike."
Why did she rise and call Crossthwaite from the next room where he was
writing? Was it from the womanly tact and delicacy which feared lest my
excited feelings might lead me on to some too daring expression, and give
me the pain of a rebuff, however gentle; or was it that she wished him, as
well as me, to hear the memorable words which followed, to which she seemed
to have been all along alluring me, and calling up in my mind, one by one,
the very questions to which she had prepared the answers?
"That name!" I answered. "Alas! has it not been in every age the watchword,
not of an all-embracing charity, but of self-conceit and bigotry,
excommunication and persecution?"
"That is what men have made it; not God, or He who bears it, the Son
of God.
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