had one talent had brushed round, he could ‘a’ made a spec on it, an’ had somethin’ to show fur it, but he jest hid it.  I don’t stan’ up for ’im.  I think he was meaner nor pusly not to make the best on’t, but he didn’t need to pray for sense, for the man didn’t want ’im to use no more nor his nateral stock, an’ he knowed if he used that he’d be all right.”

“But we are told to pray, Jim,” said Mr. Balfour, “and assured that it is pleasant to the Lord to receive our petitions.  We are even told to pray for our daily bread.”

“Well, it can’t mean jest that, fur the feller that don’t work for’t don’t git it, an’ he hadn’t oughter git it.  If he don’t lift his hands, but jest sets with his mouth open, he gits mostly flies.  The old birds, with a nest full o’ howlin’ young ones, might go on, I s’pose, pickin’ up grasshoppers till the cows come home, an’ feedin’ ’em, but they don’t.  They jest poke ’em out o’ the nest, an’ larn ’em to fly an’ pick up their own livin’; an’ that’s what makes birds on ’em.  They pray mighty hard fur their daily bread, I tell ye, and the way the old birds answer is jest to poke ’em out, and let ’em slide.  I don’t see many prayin’ folks, an’ I don’t see many folks any way; but I have a consait that a feller can pray so much an’ do so little, that he won’t be nobody.  He’ll jest grow weaker an’ weaker all the time.”

“I don’t see,” said Mr. Balfour, laughing, and turning to Mr. Benedict, “but we’ve had the exposition of our Scripture.”

The former had always delighted to hear Jim talk, and never lost an opportunity to set him going; but he did not know that Jim’s exposition of the parable had a personal motive.  Mr. Benedict knew that it had, and was very serious over it.  His nature was weak in many respects.  His will was weak; he had no combativeness; he had a wish to lean.  He had been baffled and buffeted in the world.  He had gone down into the darkness, praying all the way; and now that he had come out of it, and had so little society; now that his young life was all behind him, and so few earthly hopes beckoned him on, he turned with a heart morbidly religious to what seemed to him the only source of comfort open to him.  Jim had watched him with pain.  He had seen him, from day to day, spending his hours alone, and felt that prayer formed almost the staple of his life.  He had seen him willing to work, but knew that his heart was not in it.  He was not willing to go back into the world, and assert his place among men.  The poverty, disease, and disgrace of his former life dwelt in his memory, and he shrank from the conflicts and competitions which would be necessary to enable him to work out better results for himself.

Jim thoroughly believed that Benedict was religiously diseased, and that he never could become a man again until he had ceased to live so exclusively in the spiritual world.  He contrived all possible ways to keep him employed.  He put responsibility upon him.  He stimulated him with considerations of the welfare of Harry.  He disturbed him in his retirement.  He contrived fatigues that would induce sound sleep.  To use his own language, he had tried to cure him of “loppin’,” but with very unsatisfactory results.