"I may not be enough in earnest or I may not have the right motives, but I do want to be really good like you and Colonel Douglas and—and others are. And I've asked to be made so, but nothing has changed me. I have even begun to read my Bible regularly, but I don't care for it. Were you born good? How did you arrive at it? Don't laugh at me. I'm really in earnest."
"My dear child, I am the last person in the world to laugh at you. Let me ask you this, Jean: do you feel that your life is a failure in the sight of God?"
"Well, no—not exactly. I am making use of one of the talents that He has given me. And I can't say I'm a very wicked sort of person, am I? I was looking at a little devotional book the other day—One of yours, I think it is—and I could not work myself up to such a pitch as I was told to. I don't loathe myself for being such a sinner; I don't feel sometimes that I am one at all."
"But whether you feel it or not, the fact remains the same. If you believe the Bible, you must believe in sin. If you have had any knowledge of life, you must believe in it."
"Let us take the great centre truth of the Bible, Jean. God's own creatures that He made for His own glory were estranged from Him; He sent His Son to bring them back to Himself. Christ died for this purpose. He offered Himself a sacrifice to reconcile us to God. Have you been reconciled? Or are you still estranged? If you are estranged, you are virtually rejecting and ignoring that great sacrifice. That is the one sin which shuts out a soul from the presence of God."
"Christ said, 'This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.' Do you know God, Jean, dear? Have you any interest, any love for Him?"
"Very, very little," murmured Jean, with downcast eyes; "but I am groping after Him."
"And do you know the one thing that will make you really in earnest in your search?"
"No."
"The knowledge of your own heart. Ask God to show it to you. Ask Him to remind you that for twenty years you have received all and given nothing to Him; that you have lived entirely for self. That though the Son of God came down on this earth and suffered and died for you, you have been turning your back on Him and entirely ignoring His claim upon you. When you realise the burden of sin, which, remember, as long as you keep apart from your Saviour, you are bound to bear on your own shoulders and be responsible for, you will long in a way you now cannot understand for a personal interview with your Saviour. And that interview must in one way or another, I believe, take place in every soul that is really seeking the kingdom of God."