"A Greek scholar should go to the Greek," said the curate. "Our
English is not perfect. You see she wanted to make him show off, and
he thought how little she knew what he came to the world for. Her
thoughts were so unlike his that he said, What have we in common! It
was a moan of the God-head over the distance of its creature.
Perhaps he thought: How then will you stand the shock when at length
it comes? But he looked at her as her own son ought to look at every
blessed mother, and she read in his eyes no rebuke, for instantly,
sure of her desire, she told them to do whatever he said."

"I hope that's the right way of it," said Leopold, "for I want to
trust him out and out. But what do you make of the story of the poor
woman that came about her daughter? Wasn't he rough to her? It
always seemed to me such a cruel thing to talk of throwing the meat
of the children to the dogs!"

"We cannot judge of the word until we know the spirit that gave
birth to it. Let me ask you a question: What would you take for the
greatest proof of downright friendship a man could show you?"

"That is too hard a question to answer all at once."

"Well, I may be wrong, but the deepest outcome of friendship seems
to me, on the part of the superior at least, the permission, or
better still, the call, to share in his sufferings. And in saying
that hard word to the poor Gentile, our Lord honoured her thus
mightily. He assumed for the moment the part of the Jew towards the
Gentile, that he might, for the sake of all the world of Gentiles
and Jews, lay bare to his Jewish followers the manner of spirit they