"Would you like to drive out with me this morning? I have to go to a rather pretty village about eight miles out?"
"I should love it. My dream will keep. I will run up to Mrs. Fergusson, and tell her I am going."
A little later, when they were driving swiftly along in Dr. Fergusson's high dog-cart, Jean told her dream.
"I thought I was seeing a ship off. You were in it, and I was trying to get to you, but I couldn't, and some one behind me kept saying, 'Only willing and cheerful workers go abroad; you are neither, in your heart!' And then a great darkness fell over me, and everything—God Himself, and hopes of heaven, and forgiveness for my past sins—all melted away, and the same voice said, 'Your religion, your Christianity, has been taken away from you. You didn't make proper use of it.' I tell you, Leslie, it was awful! I felt almost as if I were in hell, there seemed no light, no hope, and I had lost God! That seemed the most awful thing of all. I felt that there was no future, and my soul was in abject despair. I couldn't pray; I tried to find my Bible, but I found it was gone; I rushed about trying to find good people, a church, a clergyman, any one or anything that would help me, but every one I met was like myself, and at last some one said to me, 'You are a heathen like ourselves. We don't know anything about God or heaven!' Then I woke up, the tears were streaming down my face, and oh, I can't tell you the blessing it was to find it was only a dream!"
Dr. Fergusson was silent, but he looked down upon her very tenderly. Jean went on rather impulsively: "My dream has finished what you began, Leslie. I feel I have experienced what it is to be a heathen! And oh, what they miss! I am longing, burning, to go and tell them of the love and goodness and mercy of God, to bring sunshine into that awful darkness of soul, to tell them the story of the Cross, and all that it brought to us, and Christ's keeping as well as saving power. I never knew what a glorious thing it is to be a Christian, till it seemed to be all swept away from me last night!"
"I read the passages that gave Christ's last words, and I was convinced in my head before I went to sleep that every Christian ought to be a messenger or a witness, but when I woke this morning, my heart was convinced as well as my head. Leslie, you need not be afraid that I will hang back now. I believe God has shown me Himself what He would have me do."
"I believe He has," Dr. Fergusson said, thoughtfully. "I am not one who says no one can witness at home, Jean. I would not forget the words, 'beginning at Jerusalem,' but there are always those who, from health or circumstances, are unfitted for the foreign field. It has been the dream of my life to go. My mother has hitherto held me back."
"And will she be willing now?"
"I think she will not miss me so much. I daresay you know Meta Worth and my brother are going to marry shortly. My mother wishes them to come and live here with her, and they seem to like the idea of it. I shall be quite easy in my own mind about leaving her, and if you are willing, I shall offer myself at once for foreign work."
Jean laid her hand caressingly on his arm.