Маргарет Олифант - The Unjust Steward or The Minister's Debt

“I am sure we are much beholden to him,” said Mrs. Buchanan, holding her head high. “It’s delicate of him to spare your feelings; for, I suppose, however enlightened you may be beyond your fellows, you must still have some kind of objection to hear your father criticised.”

“Oh, mother, how can you take it like that?” said Marion; “there was no criticism. If anything was said, it was more me than him. I said I could not bide to hear a word, as if our Lord might have approved such an ill man. And he said it was dangerous for a mixed congregation, and that few considered the real meaning of a parable, but just took every word as if it was instruction.”

“And that was just your father’s strong point. He said it was like taking another man’s sail to fill up a leak in a boat. You would praise the man for getting the first thing he could lay his hands on to save himself and his crew, but not for taking his neighbour’s sail—that was just his grand point; but there are some folk that will always take things in the matter-of-fact way, to the letter, and cannot understand what’s expounded according to the spirit. That, however, has always just been your father’s special gift,” said the minister’s wife, de facto . She, who was only a minister’s wife in expectation, ought to have bowed her head; but, being young and confident, even though so extremely reasonable, Marion could not subdue herself to that better part.

“That was just what Matthew said—dangerous for a mixed congregation,” she repeated; “the most of them just being bound by nature to the letter, and very matter-of-fact–”

“No doubt Matthew is a great authority,” said Mrs. Buchanan, with a violent snap of her big scissors.

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