I came not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance._"
Repentance was a rite for Laodice, a payment of offering, a process to
the righteously inclined, a thing that could in no wise purify the
sinner as to make him worthy of association with the upright. The old
Christian's use of the word was different; he had said that the
Messiah came to the sinner, and not to the righteous. Had the young
Jewess been less in need of comfort in her own consciousness of
spiritual delinquency she would have set down the old teacher as one
of the idlest dealers in contradiction. But now she listened with
keener zest; perchance in this doctrine there was balm for her hurt.
She made some answer which showed the awakening of this new interest
and then with infinite poetry and earnestness he began to unfold the
teachings of Christ.
A woman came to them with wine and food, for the midday had come, but
neither noticed it. In his fervor to enlighten this tender soul, the
old man forgot his weariness; in her wonder at the strangely gentle
doctrine which had contradicted all the world's previous usage, the
girl forgot her prejudice. She listened; and with such signs as change
of expression, flushes of emotion, movements of surprise and
brightenings of interest to encourage him, the old Christian talked.
When he had progressed sufficiently to round out the theory of
Christianity, she had grasped a new standard.
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