“Padre!” Her eyes were aflame with holy light. “See! Here it is––the whole thing! ‘Let the wicked forsake his way, 263 and the unrighteous man his thoughts.’ But––don’t the people know what that means?”
“Well, chiquita, and what does it mean?” he asked indulgently.
“Why––the unrighteous man is the man who thinks wrong thoughts––thoughts of power opposed to God––thoughts of sin, of sickness, of accidents, and all sorts of evil things––beliefs that these things are real, and that God made or caused them!”
“Bien, and you think the Bible speaks truth?”
“Padre! how can you ask that? Why, it says right here that it is given by inspiration! That means that the men or women who wrote it thought God’s thoughts!”
“That He wrote it, you mean?”
“No, but that those who wrote it were––well, were cleaner window-panes than other people––that they were so clean that the light shone through them better than it did through others.”
“And what do you think now about Jesus?” he inquired.
“Why, as you once said, that he was the very cleanest window-pane of all!” she quickly replied.
From that hour the Bible was the girl’s constant companion. Daily she pored over it, delighted, enraptured. Josè marveled at her immediate spiritual grasp. Instead of the world’s manner of looking upon it as only a collection of beautiful promises and admonitions, she saw within it the statement of a principle that offered itself as a mighty tool with which to work out humanity’s every-day problems here and now. From the first she began to make out little lists of collated scriptural verses, so arranging them that she could read in them a complete expression of an idea of God. These she would bring to Josè and, perching herself upon his lap, would expound them, to her own great delight and the wonder of the man who listened.