"The merits of our Lord form the wedding-garment, which all must wear who would enjoy the feast of heaven. If we try to appear in our own righteousness, we shall be cast out like the miserable man of whom we have just been reading."
"You have been well-instructed in the Bible, Lydia."
The girl colored at the praise, and said, "I ought to know it well, for I read four chapters every day, and a great deal more on Sundays, and can repeat hundreds of verses by memory."
"And yet," observed Mr. Neill, "there is a wide difference between head-knowledge and heart-knowledge, between understanding the meaning of the Scriptures, and making their truths our own. I suspect that many of us fall unconsciously into the error of the man in the parable, and fancy that there is something in ourselves to make us acceptable in the presence of our Heavenly King. When you came into the room, Lydia, my mind was dwelling upon the very subject, and I was forming a little allegory, or story, about the garment of human merits."
"I wish that you would tell me your allegory," said Lydia; "I often make such stories myself."
"Close the Bible, and place it on the table, my child, and you shall know what thoughts were suggested to my mind by the parable of the wedding-garment."
Lydia obeyed and listened with some interest and curiosity to this, the first story which she had ever heard from the lips of her uncle. Mr. Neill thus began:
"Ada was a bright young creature, brought up in a happy and a holy home, where, almost as an infant, she had been taught to pray, and where Scripture had been made familiar to her from the earliest dawn of reason. Ada was an invited guest to the feast of the great King, and she had accepted the invitation. She knew that she must appear in His courts robed in righteousness not her own, a garment provided by the Lord of the feast, spotless, holy, and white."
"But Ada had a friend, or rather let me term her an enemy, in a companion named Self-love, whose society was so delightful to the girl that they were constantly found together. It was wonderful to behold the influence quietly exerted by Self-love over the mind of her young companion. She joined Ada in her amusements, assisted at her studies, went with her wherever she went, even to the cottages of the poor, even to the house of prayer. But Self-love was treacherous as well as pleasing; her influence was never exerted for good; her one great object was to draw Ada away from religion, and cause her to be rejected at the great banquet, to which Self-love never herself could be admitted."
"'Is it not hard,' whispered Self-love one night, 'that all the guests at the banquet are to wear the same kind of dress, whatever their former character or station may have been? I can well believe that poor wanderers from the highways, and beggars from the street, will be glad enough to lay aside their rags, and wear the garments provided; but you have a white robe of your own, fit to be worn in any palace, even the robe of innocence, embroidered all over by your hands with the silver blossoms of good works. How often has the world admired you in it! How it has been praised by your family and friends! It would, at least, form a beauteous addition to what you must wear at the banquet of Heaven."