NORAH PEELE was of an affectionate disposition and an eager spirit, and she was at an age when there is an attraction in anything new. What she had heard of religion from Mrs. Martin, and at the church which she constantly attended, had drawn her heart towards her Saviour, and made her delight in feeling that she owed all her hopes of heaven to Him. Norah took pleasure in going to church, especially in listening to the sweet music, and her eyes would fill with tears when she heard or read of the sufferings of Christ.
But Norah's religion had been one of feeling rather than of practice; its power had not overcome evil habits which she had acquired in her home. It had been rather like fragrant oil floating on the top of a vase of water, than like wine, which spreads through the whole, giving colour and sweetness to every drop. Norah's religion had been too much like a Sunday dress, not worn in her working hours; it had not made her perfectly honest, just, and true in all her dealings. Norah had come to Christ, like the rich young man of whom we read in the gospel, but she had not yet learned to follow Christ in the steps of His holy life.
The few blunt words of the sailor had opened Norah's eyes to the truth. Had she hitherto deserved the name of a Christian at all? Had not hers been a false profession? If so, should she not, from henceforth, resolve to lead a new life, to be what she had wished to appear, to deny sinful self, to take up her cross and follow her Lord!
Norah, with the eagerness of her nature, determined to do all this, perhaps without sufficiently counting the cost, perhaps without dwelling enough on the warning, "ask the Lord for that breastplate of righteousness which will stand rough work and hard blows; don't trust in any pasteboard resolutions of your own." From henceforth, Norah determined that she would let her light so shine before men, that they should see her good works, and glorify her Father in heaven.
When Norah had fulfilled her usual evening duties, read to Mrs. Martin, made her tea, seen to her comforts, and left her in quiet repose for the night, the young girl sought her own little room, with her mind and heart still full of what her sailor uncle had said. She had usually amused herself at night with reading the trashy novel lent by Sophy Puller, but now for the first time Norah Peele paused before she opened the book.
"I wonder if this is one of the things which I must give up?" thought Norah. "Certainly it makes me sit up very late at night, and mistress wonders how I can use up so many candles, and she has often told me to go to bed early, for fear I should fall asleep over my work, and set the house on fire. And then these novels do fill my head so full of thoughts—some very bad ones I fear! While I was reading the Bible to mistress, I could not help my mind running on that dreadful woman and that horrible murder, they interested me so! Yet what is the harm in reading; how shall I know if it is really my duty to give up this pleasure?"
Norah half opened the dirty volume.
"What did my uncle say? He told me to bring everything straight to the Lord, to ask—Is this what He would approve, what He would have done in my place?"
Norah shut the book, and thrust it into a drawer: her conscience had given an honest answer to the question, and the pleasure which she felt from the consciousness that she had for once exercised self-denial, quite made up to the little maid for the amusement which she had lost. Norah went to rest that night more happy than she had ever felt before.
But when Norah awoke in the grey dawn, and rose to perform her round of daily duties, the first fervour of excited feeling had had a little time to cool, and she began more seriously to consider what difficulties might beset her in her new course of practical obedience. A variety of things, small in themselves, yet of great importance, because they were matters of conscience, pressed on the young girl's mind.