"Well, honestly, I didn't feel quite ready to leave this world. I thought it out as I floated on the water, and I think I prayed the first fervent prayer in my life. I wanted to be spared. I wanted it desperately. I suppose the love of life is hard to kill, because I am leading a very useless existence at present, and there's no particular reason for me to be spared, when so many others are taken."
"Your prayer was answered."
"Yes, and I am digging into my Bible furiously; I have read it for an hour at a time. I want to discover the secret that the early Christians had, and which enabled them to go through fire and water unmoved. The Epistles are interesting me. I told you what a heathen I was, didn't I? What a high ideal we are supposed to have of our purpose in this world. It staggers me; I don't like feeling small, but there's no doubt the Bible does that."
"Infinitesimally small," said General Macdonald. "But you've read the paradox: 'When I am weak then I am strong.'"
"I don't understand half I read."
She looked at him with a mixture of shame and amusement.
"I wish you would preach me a dear little sermon, General Macdonald. I know you could do it quite as well as our young minister. I never get to church."
"No; I could never preach," said General Macdonald seriously; "but I think I can tell you the secret of the early Christians' faith and endurance. They 'endured as seeing Him Who is invisible,' we are told. Our Master's last words were: 'Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.'"
"I think," said Rowena very slowly with downcast eyes, "the result of my Bible study is that I want to have Him with me."
General Macdonald looked at her with a sudden brightness in his eyes. He murmured to himself, but just loud enough for her to hear: "'But one thing is needful—she hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her.'"