“Are you willing,” he asked, after a moment, “to make the supreme renunciation? to face poverty, and perhaps disgrace, to save your soul and others?”

“And—­others?”

“Yes.  Your sacrifice would not, could not be in vain.  Otherwise I should be merely urging on you the individualism which you once advocated with me.”

“Renunciation.”  She pronounced the word questioningly.  “Can Christianity really mean that—­renunciation of the world?  Must we take it in the drastic sense of the Church of the early centuries-the Church of the Martyrs?”

“Christianity demands all of us, or nothing,” he replied.  “But the false interpretation of renunciation of the early Church has cast its blight on Christianity even to our day.  Oriental asceticism, Stoicism, Philo and other influences distorted Christ’s meaning.  Renunciation does not mean asceticism, retirement from the world, a denial of life.  And the early Christian, since he was not a citizen, since he took the view that this mortal existence was essentially bad and kept his eyes steadfastly fixed on another, was the victim at once of false philosophies and of the literal messianic prophecies of the Jews, which were taken over with Christianity.  The earthly kingdom which was to come was to be the result of some kind of a cataclysm.  Personally, I believe our Lord merely used the Messianic literature as a convenient framework for his spiritual Kingdom of heaven, and that the Gospels misinterpret his meaning on this point.

“Renunciation is not the withdrawal from, the denial of life, but the fulfilment of life, the submission to the divine will and guidance in order that our work may be shown us.  Renunciation is the assumption, at once, of heavenly and earthly citizenship, of responsibility for ourselves and our fellow-men.  It is the realization that the other world, the inner, spiritual world, is here, now, and that the soul may dwell in it before death, while the body and mind work for the coming of what may be called the collective kingdom.  Life looked upon in that way is not bad, but good,—­not meaningless, but luminous.”

She had listened hungrily, her eyes fixed upon his face.

“And for me?” she questioned.

“For you,” he answered, leaning forward and speaking with a conviction that shook her profoundly, “if you make the sacrifice of your present unhappiness, of your misery, all will be revealed.  The labour which you have shirked, which is now hidden from you, will be disclosed, you will justify your existence by taking your place as an element of the community.  You will be able to say of yourself, at last, ‘I am of use.’”

“You mean—­social work?”

The likeness of this to Mrs. Plimpton’s question struck him.  She had called it “charity.”  How far had they wandered in their teaching from the Revelation of the Master, since it was as new and incomprehensible to these so-called Christians as to Nicodemus himself!